Debate: Amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive  - Amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation
Date: MONDAY, 15 JANUARY 2024
Speaker: Danuta Maria Hübner
Country: Germany
Language: EN

Many in this House will remember that we embarked on building the Capital Markets Union back in 2015, but the project was tailored to the EU of 28 Member States with a major financial centre across the channel, and the focus was on national capital markets rather than on the removal of cross-border barriers. We need urgently to move away from fragmented capital markets and towards the idea of a capital market union. Advancing towards a truly single and vibrant capital market union is of fundamental importance for European open strategic autonomy. This context to the MiFIR and MiFID review, which had four key objectives: to reduce market fragmentation and market data costs; to harmonise and simplify the transparency rules; to enhance the levels of investor protection; and to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of EU markets. I can proudly say that the text that we will vote on tomorrow achieves all these objectives. Thanks to the assertiveness of our House, for the first time, Europe will have a consolidated tape, a database designed to democratise access to market data and improve data quality by providing a continuous electronic live data stream on prices and trading volumes, consolidating the information obtained from multiple trading venues across the EU. It will reduce the fragmentation and cost of market data, will empower financial institutions and retail investors to observe in a single place the price and volumes for shares, ETFs, bonds or derivatives in the Union. The discussions on the consolidated tape were the most difficult part of the package, due to divergent views on the exact features that this new market infrastructure should have. In the review, we have also taken a careful look at the functioning of the market transparency rules in the Union, as well as in other jurisdictions. We put forward changes that seek to increase the competitiveness of EU firms, supported by the simplification and harmonisation of the transparency rules applicable across Europe. We have introduced greater flexibility in the framework by empowering the European Securities and Market Authority to set the thresholds and limits applicable to market transparency, and to oversee market developments, intervening when required. The harmonisation and simplification of transparency rules should strengthen the level playing field between all market participants and increase the overall transparency of European market structure. The report also mandates the Commission to carry out a holistic assessment of the financial markets legislation with respect to commodity derivatives, in light of the learnings from the energy crisis. To conclude, thanks to the efforts of the negotiating team, to whom I am really grateful for the openness, the final text contains many of the elements that the Parliament was calling for throughout the negotiations, and I believe that the final compromise represents a great victory not only for the Parliament, but for all those who care about the importance of the European Capital Markets Union.