On August 8, the European Commission published the long-awaited review report on the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) and the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) as well as on the mission and organization of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB).
The report is included in the review of the functioning of the new supervisory architecture put in place in 2011, as part of the comprehensive reforms in response to the financial crisis, and will now be sent to the European Parliament and to the Council for their consideration.
The Commission’s report acknowledges that there is still room for further improvement in the short-and medium term “in order to allow the ESAs to fully exploit their mandates”. Among the areas where some improvements can be implemented in the short term by the ESAs and the Commission, the report stresses the need to ensure that stakeholder groups are composed in a balanced way, “taking into account the opinion of the Ombudsman”.
BETTER FINANCE already raised concerns regarding the misrepresentation of consumer and other retail users in the ESA’s Stakeholder Groups. We believe there is certainly progress to be made if the objective is to take into account the opinion of EU citizens on what are the repeatedly worst rated consumer services of all within the EU.
Please read the full report and the working document here and here.