ESME Members Appointed By European Commission

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

16 June 2006

It emerged on Thursday that the European Commission has appointed the 20 members of the European Securities Markets Expert Group (ESME) – a new group which will look carefully at how EU securities Directives work in practice, determine whether or not they are delivering the intended results and propose changes where necessary.

The Group's creation is a follow-up action to the White Paper on Financial Services 2005-2010, and a crucial part of the Better Regulation agenda in financial services. It will meet up to four times a year, and it is likely that one or more sub-groups within the group will be set up to examine specific issues.

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy announced that:

"The response to our call for applications for this group has been tremendous. We have received over 120 applications from across the EU – a strong signal of interest in the importance of EU securities legislation and other issues, such as credit rating agencies and the role of financial analysts within a securities markets context."

The European Securities Markets Expert Group will assist the Commission in its analysis of the legal coherence of the EU securities framework. It will aim to identify points of legal uncertainty which impair the functioning of securities markets from the perspective of the regulated community and users of these markets, and will make recommendations to the Commission accordingly.

Secondly, it will provide the Commission with input for the reports on the application of various provisions of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive ("MiFID"), the Prospectus Directive, the Market Abuse Directive and the Transparency Directive.

In addition, it will analyse the economic impact of those Directives. Finally, it will provide technical advice – in response to specific requests from the Commission – on issues of contemporary relevance in EU securities markets, such as credit rating agencies and financial analysts.

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