Overview
- The European Commission proposed shifting supervision of major trading venues, central counterparties, central securities depositories and large crypto‑asset providers to ESMA.
- The package would streamline cross‑border activity through enhanced passporting, allow pan‑EU trading venues to consolidate under a single licence, and relax certain limits on distributed‑ledger technology pilots.
- France, Italy and Austria support stronger EU‑level supervision, while Malta’s regulator opposes expanding ESMA’s role over crypto firms.
- Industry and fintech groups warn that centralization could slow approvals and create bottlenecks unless ESMA receives significant additional resources.
- The reforms seek to channel more private savings into EU markets to close a competitiveness gap with the U.S., where stock‑market capitalization is about 270% of GDP versus roughly 73% in the EU.