COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the documents Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European single access point providing centralised access to publicly available information of relevance to financial services, capital markets and sustainability Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending certain Regulations as regards the establishment and functioning of the European single access point Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending certain Directives as regards the establishment and functioning of the European single access point
Date: 2021-11-25
Institutions: Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, European Commission
Subjects: European Securities and Markets Authority, access to information, capital market, data collection, digital single market, disclosure of information, financial legislation, financial services, information system, open data

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 25.11.2021  SWD(2021) 345 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the documents Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European single access point providing centralised access to publicly available information of relevance to financial services, capital markets and sustainability Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council      amending certain Regulations as regards the establishment and functioning of the European single access point             Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council    amending certain Directives as regards the establishment and functioning of the European single access point {COM(2021) 723 final} - {SEC(2021) 572 final} - {SWD(2021) 344 final} - {COM(2021) 724 final} - {COM(2021) 725 final}  
 
 
Executive Summary Sheet 

Impact assessment report accompanying the document proposal on the European Single Access Point 

A. Need for action 

Why? What is the problem being addressed? 
In order to make sound investment decisions, investors in capital markets must have access to  and 
be  able  to  digitally  use  the  information  that  entities  must  publish  under  EU  law  (financial  and 
sustainability-related, product-related, etc.). Nowadays, access to this information is scattered across 
Member  States  and  hardly  digitally  useable.  Other  barriers  include  the  language  barrier,  but  also 
restrictive  terms  of  use.  This  makes  it  costly  for  users  of  corporate  and  product  information  to 
search, use and analyse the relevant information. This contribute to less efficient and integrated EU 
financial services and hinders sustainable growth.  
What is this initiative expected to achieve? 
The establishment of a European Single Access Point (ESAP) was announced in the Commission’s 
Capital Markets Union (CMU) Action Plan in September 2020. It aims to reduce barriers to access 
to  information  by  digital  means.  It  will  increase  the  flows  of  information  within  the  Union, 
including  across  borders.  It  also  aims  to  foster  the  digital  use  and  re-use  of  information.  These 
achievements on information flows and use will in turn contribute to integrating financial services 
and  capital  markets  and  to  better  allocate  capital.    As  a  common  data  space,  the  ESAP  will  also 
enable  the  development  of  new  technologies  and  services  for  instance  based  on  automation  or 
artificial intelligence.  

What is the value added of action at the EU level? 
The  objective  of  this  initiative  (i.e.  integrating  databases  and  information  across  the  union  and 
making  them  digitally  usable)  cannot  be  sufficiently  achieved  by  the  Member  States  individually. 
Currently,  most  of  the  rules  pertaining  to  the  channels  and  formats  of  disclosure  of  corporate 
reporting  information  are  set  out  by  Member  States’  legislation.  Considering  the  scale  and  the 
effects  of  establishing  a  European  single  access  point,  addressing  these  issues  can  be  more 
efficiently achieved at Union level. 

B. Solutions 

What legislative and non-legislative policy  options have been considered?  Is there a preferred 
choice or not? Why? 
Several  legislative  and  non-legislative  options  were  explored,  leading  to  the  following  preferred 
options on five key dimensions:  

-  Scope: the scope of the information accessible via the ESAP will include all entity, product 
and  other  relevant  information  published  by  entities  under  the  scope  of  the  EU  financial 
services legislation, with a phased approach from 2024 till 2026; 

-  Formats: the ESAP will accept information/documents prepared in an open and widely used 
data extractable format, and enable the further development of machine readable formats in 
the long run, on a case by case basis, together with common minimum set of metadata;  
-  Collection  points:  the  collection  of  information  will  be  organised  on  a  decentralised  basis, 
building  on  existing  national  bodies  such  as  the  Officially  Appointed  Mechanisms,  or  EU 
bodies  such  as  the  European  Supervisory  Authorities.  All  the  collection  points  will  enable 
the ESAP to access that information via application programming interfaces; 

-  Open  data:  the  ESAP  will  foster  an  open  data  policy  based  on  open  terms  of  use  fully 

enabling re-use, free access to information and widely used open formats; 

-  Governance: the ESAP will be governed by the European Securities and Markets Authority 

(ESMA). 

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Who supports which option?  
The ESAP has wide-spread support across all key stakeholder groups. As regards the design and set-
up, most respondents to the targeted consultation and participants to e-workshops were in favour of 
having  a  broad  scope  of  publicly  disclosed  financial  and  sustainability-related  information  easily 
accessible  and  machine-readable  in  a  centralised  manner.  Users  of  this  information  demand  good 
quality of the data and further digitised data to enable their electronic use. As regards governance, a 
majority  supported  a  public  body  in  charge  of  ESAP,  whilst  many  also  supported  further 
involvement of the private sector in the governance. 

C. Impacts of the preferred option 

What are the benefits of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?  
The ESAP  will  enhance  the circulation of information, both  within the Member States and across 
borders  It  will  increase  the  digital  use  of  this  information.  This  will  bring  higher,  equal  and 
indiscriminate  visibility  of  any  market  participants  and  voluntary  filer  to  investors,  analysists, 
intermediates, researchers or funds, independently of their own size or the size of their market. This 
will open up funding opportunities and contribute to a better allocation and lower cost of capital as 
well  as  more  resilience  of  the  internal  market.  ESAP  will  offer  easy  access  to  a  wider  array  of 
information in a timely and efficient manner, thus opening new horizons. Users will also save time 
and  resources  for  searching  and  processing  information.  The  ESAP  will  help  address  a  growing 
need for sustainability-related data by companies, thus contributing to the objectives of sustainable 
finance and the Green Deal. The ESAP will enable the offer of innovative services in the financial 
area based on analytics, big data or artificial intelligence / machine learning, and as well access and 
use on electronic devices.  

What are the costs of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?  
The  total  costs  for  the  implementation  (infrastructure)  and  operation  of  the  ESAP  by  ESMA  over 
2022  to  2027  will  amount  up  to  EUR  16  million.  The  costs  for  the  interconnection  of  the 
EU/national collection points with the ESAP are estimated to be around EUR 50 800 per collection 
body and EUR 3.1 million collectively (one-off), while recurring costs would be around EUR 6 500 
per collection body and around EUR 0.4 million collectively. For data preparers in the scope of the 
ESAP,  one-off  costs  (e.g.  registration  with  a  collection  body)  should  be  negligible  but  the  annual 
recurring costs for filing, acquiring a legal entity identifier, the digital certificate and the signing tool 
are estimated up to EUR 800 at individual level and around EUR 121 million at EU collective level.  
How will businesses, SMEs and micro-enterprises be affected?  
As  the  need  for  greater  visibility  is  more  prominent  among  SMEs  (i.e.  due  to  a  lack  of  SME 
research),  ESAP  will  permit  the  voluntary  upload  of  information  by  non-listed  entities  such  as 
SMEs, thus opening up further funding opportunities due to increased visibility, and contributing to 
increase their ability to expand beyond their own borders. 
Will there be significant impacts on national budgets and administrations?  
Funding provided to ESMA (for both administrative and operational costs) following the entry into 
force  of  the  legislation,  will  be  co-funded  via  the  EU  budget  for  up  to  40%  and  by  National 
Competent Authorities for the remaining 60%. The proposal does not prescribe the ways in which 
national  public  collection  bodies  would  adjust 
their  funding  sources,  where  necessary. 
The Commission’s TSI programme (DG REFORM) can partially fund the technical support for the 
implementation of the ESAP by National Competent Authorities, upon their request. 

Will there be other significant impacts?  
No.  

D. Follow up 

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When will the policy be reviewed?  
It is proposed to review the policy five years after entry into force, and to implement monitoring 
tools. 

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