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30 November 2010

ECON committee: First exchange of views on European Market Infrastructure Regulation


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Rapporteur Werner Langen wants to follow a tight timetable, arguing that the G20 had agreed to have implemented the OTC market reform by the end of 2012. Mr Langen aims for a plenary vote before the 2011 summer break.


On the transatlantic coordination, Mr Langen stressed that the Dodd-Frank Act and EMIR are covering the same issues on OTC derivatives. Moreover, the EP ECON secretariat services are looking at this and will prepare a paper comparing the US and the EU regulatory proposals by the end of January 2011.

Concerning the reporting and clearing thresholds, he believes that more information is needed on the threshold’s values and on the criteria to be used by the authorities. On data reporting to trade repositories, he stressed the need for an EU standard registration process and to put in place some sort of equivalence criteria with third countries, such the US. The EU has to make sure they have access to data wherever the trade repository is based.  He mentioned that data protection is also an issue that should be tackled in EMIR. 

Udo Bullmann (DE, S&D) spoke on behalf of shadow rapporteur Leonardo Domenici (IT, S&D). He expressed his support to Mr Langen’s approach and said that the S&D group supports a strong role for ESMA. He also mentioned that CCPs need to have access to central bank liquidity. Shadow rapporteur Pascal Canfin (FR, Greens) said that the role of ESMA should be as strong as possible. The supervision should be done directly by ESMA and not by intermediaries.

More industry-friendly shadow rapporteur Kay Swinburne (UK, ECR) proposed to drop from the text “OTC” and refer to all derivatives instead. This will imply a greater coverage of the derivatives markets. On the exemptions, she stressed that regulators should make sure that they are well defined. She also believes that the types of assets accepted in CCPs should be clarified.

ECON Chairwomen and shadow rapporteur Sharon Bowles (UK, ALDE) said that it is essential to look at the interaction with other proposals that are currently being debated such CRD IV.  In EMIR’s Article 8, regulators have to make sure that there is consistency with the ideas of CRD IV in order to avoid creating an extra burden to non-financial corporates.

Patrick Pearson (Head of Unit G2 - Financial Markets Infrastructure) said that the Commission was inspired by the European Parliament’s own initiative report presented by Mr Langen before the summer. On the scope he believes that Swinburne’s idea of including all derivatives and not just OTC’s is a very interesting proposal. The Commission is seriously taking into account what the US is proposing on derivatives and welcomes the EP initiative to publish a comparative report of both proposals. He said that the proposed system will build CCP monopolies and regulators should make sure that they have access to liquidity. Moreover, there should be a further look at the systemic risk of CCPs and cross-sector CCPs’ stress tests could be carried out.
 
 





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