The aim is to cut through a patchwork of rules that now involves dozens of national and regional regulators and hundreds of trading and post-trading firms.
This would include trading venues, central counterparties and central securities depositories, and it could reach crypto asset service providers.
The Commission has said it will put forward proposals in December as part of a “markets integration package.”
According to people close to the discussions, ESMA would also be given a stronger role when national supervisors disagree. ESMA would not run every national regulator, but it could make binding decisions in disputes between large asset managers or between national authorities.
But not everyone is on board. Reports have disclosed resistance from financial centers such as Luxembourg and Dublin, which warn that a central supervisor could disadvantage their markets.
Gilles Roth, Luxembourg’s finance minister, said they would like to have “supervisory convergence” rather than creating a “costly and ineffective” centralized model.
Berlin has long opposed sweeping central powers, yet the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has signaled a more open stance and is discussing options with Paris.
That change matters because Germany’s position carries weight across the EU. Based on reports, the push is also cast as a response to rivalry with the US — policymakers want more home-grown capital markets so European firms can scale without moving across the Atlantic.
Featured image from PaymentsJournal, chart from TradingView
