Regulation 2010/1092 - EU macro-prudential oversight of the financial system and establishing a European Systemic Risk Board - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 331/1

Financial stability is a precondition for the real economy to provide jobs, credit and growth. The financial crisis has revealed important shortcomings in financial supervision, which has failed to anticipate adverse macro-prudential developments and to prevent the accumulation of excessive risks within the financial system.

The European Parliament called repeatedly for the reinforcement of a true level playing field for all actors at the level of the Union while pointing out significant failures in the Union’s supervision of ever more integrated financial markets (in its resolutions of 13 April 2000 on the Commission communication on implementing the framework for financial markets: Action Plan (4), of 21 November 2002 on prudential supervision rules in the European Union (5), of 11 July 2007 on financial services policy (2005 to 2010) – White Paper (6), of 23 September 2008 with recommendations to the Commission on hedge funds and private equity (7) and of 9 October 2008 with recommendations to the Commission on Lamfalussy follow-up: future structure of supervision (8), and in its positions of 22 April 2009 on the amended proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the taking-up and pursuit of the business of Insurance and Reinsurance (Solvency II) (9) and of 23 April 2009 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Credit Rating Agencies (10)).

In November 2008, the Commission mandated a High-Level Group chaired by Jacques de Larosière to make recommendations on how to strengthen European supervisory arrangements with a view to better protecting the citizen and rebuilding trust in the financial system.

In its final report presented on 25 February 2009 (the ‘de Larosière Report’), the High-Level Group recommended, inter alia, the establishment of a Union level body charged with overseeing risk in the financial system as a whole.

In its Communication of 4 March 2009 entitled ‘Driving European Recovery’, the Commission welcomed and broadly supported the recommendations of the de Larosière Report. At its meeting of 19 and 20 March 2009, the European Council agreed on the need to improve the regulation and supervision of financial institutions within the Union and to use the de Larosière Report as a basis for action.

In its Communication of 27 May 2009 entitled ‘European Financial Supervision’, the Commission suggested a series of reforms to the current arrangements for safeguarding financial stability at the Union level, in particular including the creation of a European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) responsible for macro-prudential oversight. The Council on 9 June 2009 and the European Council at its meeting of 18 and 19 June 2009 supported the Commission’s suggestions and welcomed its intention to put forward legislative proposals for the new framework to be in place in the course of 2010. In line with the views of the Commission, the Council concluded, inter alia, that the European Central Bank (ECB) ‘should provide analytical, statistical...