Access Investments-European Union- ROMANIA

The European Supervisory Authorities (‘ESAs’) are the European Banking Authority (‘EBA’), the European Securities & Markets Authority (‘ESMA’) and the European Insurance & Occupational Pensions Authority (‘EIOPA’), which were all established in January 2011.  The ESAs are independent, EU-funded bodies of experts from EU member states (the ‘Member States’) who advise on new financial legislation, promote supervisory convergence, and generally exercise an EU-level ‘system management’ role as distinct from day-to-day supervision. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (‘SSM’) is the first element of the Eurozone Banking Union proposed in mid-2012. The core of the SSM is the European Central Bank (‘ECB’), which will exercise direct day-to-day prudential supervision over larger Eurozone banks, while also retaining ultimate responsibility for the prudential regulation of other Eurozone banks, which will take place in practice by national supervisors as before.  The SSM proposals made clear that the ECB was intended to replace national supervisors for certain activities, but not to encroach on the remit of the EBA (see above). However concerns have been raised over how far this will work in practice.