At the end of each month, the SAFE Regulatory Radar highlights a selection of important news and developments on financial regulation at the national and EU level.
Market Supervision and Integration Package: Council position
On 9 October, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, agreed on the EU member states' position on the Market and Integration Supervision Package (MISP), following a note prepared by the Irish Council Presidency. Proposed by the European Commission in December 2025, MISP aims to harmonize and integrate EU financial markets pre- and post-trade via shifts of supervisory competences to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), automatic passporting for funds, and real-time data transmission to consolidated tape providers (see the December 2025 Regulatory Radar for details).
While largely supportive of the goal to remove market frictions and fragmentation, the member states have scaled back some of the ambitious legislative plans by the Commission. In particular, the Council position redefines under which conditions large trading venues would be subject to direct supervision by ESMA instead of national supervisors. ESMA supervision would be mandatory for venues which declare themselves as Pan-European Market Operator (PEMO) in an opt-in regime or trading venues which are considered significant.
Criteria define a trading venue as significant if it is part of a trading group operating in at least two member states and has at least 5 per cent of EU trading activity, or if it has at least 15 per cent of EU trading activity with a very high share of cross-border trading activity.
The Council position is the result of a conflict between the six largest EU economies which were reluctant to move supervisory competences to ESMA for largely nationally active trading venues. Smaller countries, meanwhile, feared that continued national supervision of large trading venues would encourage national favoritism and harm the level playing field. While the European Parliament laid out draft resolutions in June 2026, it has not yet adopted its final positions. Once the Parliament has voted, the trilogue will take place with an expressed wish to end negotiations between the institutions before the end of the year.
EU Inc.: Council position
On 23 October, the Council of the EU adopted its negotiating position on the European Commission’s EU Inc. proposal, presented in March 2026. The proposal would create an optional 28th company-law regime alongside the 27 national systems, allowing companies to register online within 48 hours for a maximum fee of €100 and operate across the Single Market.
The Council retains these core aims while clarifying how the rules interact with national and sectoral law, strengthening preventive checks, and adjusting provisions on digital procedures, share registers and listing. It also allows registration to be refused on anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing or other criminal grounds under national law.
However, the Council position falls short to address recommendations by Luca Enriques, Casimiro A. Nigro and Tobias Tröger in a recent SAFE White Paper who argued that the EU should limit the scope of national law as much as possible to prevent a continuation of fragmentation. They also recommended the addition of a dedicated startup and venture-financing module to make EU Inc. attractive to small companies with high growth potential.
After the Council has adopted its position, it is now up to the European Parliament to do the same. A committee vote is scheduled for 5 November with a plenary vote expected for 12 November, however both dates are so far provisional.
Updates
- The European Council and Parliament have reached an agreement on the review of the EU Securitisation Framework. While the final text has not been published, the press release includes main elements of the agreement such as the re-calibration of capital requirements on a risk sensitive basis and the introduction of a ‘resilient’ category.
- The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) finalized the revised MAR guidelines on delaying the disclosure of inside information, following the Listing Act. ESMA also published revised guidelines on standardised procedures and messaging protocols for T+1. The EU will switch to T+1 on 11 October 2027. ESMA also published the final report on the guarantees as Central Counterparty (CCP) collateral and CCP investment policy.
- The European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) published the Joint Committee’s 2027 work programme. The priorities include DORA oversight, technical standards for PRIIPs and Level 3 work on securitization regulation.
- The European Banking Authority (EBA) published the Final Report on draft amendments to technical standards on prudential requirements for central securities depositories as well as the final technical package for version 4.4 of its reporting and disclosure framework, covering IFRS 18 reporting, Pillar 3 ESG disclosures and other technical amendments.
- EBA has classified USDC, issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, as a significant e-money token (EMT) under the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA). It will be subject to dual supervision. EBA will take over supervision of own funds, the reserve of assets, liquidity, and recovery and redemption plans from the French supervisor ("Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution", ACPR).
Public consultations
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Blog entries represent the authors’ personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE or its staff.
Authors:
Vincent Lindner and Claudia Schaffranka are Co-Heads of the SAFE Policy Center.
