What the ministers agreed

EU finance ministers reached a common position on Friday, 9 October, on the market integration and supervision package (MISP), which changes 18 EU legislative acts. The ministers adopted the position in Luxembourg. The compromise moves part of the supervisory powers over exchanges, clearing houses and securities depositories from national authorities to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), which is based in Paris. According to the reporting, ESMA would supervise the largest exchanges, clearing houses and depositories directly. Crypto-asset providers also come under ESMA, but only those classed as significant, for example firms with more than 15 million active users in the EU. A new ESMA board is to be set up to speed up decision-making.

Frankfurt's carve-out

The draft contains exemptions that mainly benefit the Frankfurt stock exchange, according to foreign media cited by money.pl. Under the proposed thresholds, some trading platforms owned by Deutsche Börse that are aimed at the domestic market would be excluded from central supervision. ESMA will not take full control of the Frankfurt exchange because of an exemption Germany negotiated, which the finance ministers of the other countries accepted on Friday. Belgium abstained from the vote and had led smaller countries in protesting this special treatment of the German exchange. Belgium argued that under the reform it would itself hand over supervision of the Euroclear clearing house. Belgian finance minister Jon Jambon, quoted by Handelsblatt, said Germany had succeeded in some cases, and Belgium wants to return to the question at the next EU summit. EU financial services commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque is disappointed, believing that accounting for national interests considerably weakened the reform proposed by the European Commission.

Warsaw's position

Polish finance minister Andrzej Domański told PAP Biznes that the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartościowych would not fall under ESMA supervision. He said the agreed criteria for placing exchanges under ESMA supervision are quantitative, and the Warsaw exchange does not meet them.

“We secured solutions under which, for example, the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartościowych will not be covered by ESMA supervision.”

Domański also said that the criticism of the agreement rested on false claims.

“A lot of disinformation has appeared here.”

The GPW posted on X that it is and will remain under the exclusive supervision of the Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF). The finance ministry issued a statement the same day saying that claims about handing supervision of GPW and KDPW to ESMA are untrue.

Polish political reaction

The agreement drew sharp criticism in Poland, mainly from Law and Justice (PiS) and the Confederation. Former deputy prime minister and state assets minister Jacek Sasin of PiS wrote on X that Domański and Tusk had sold the Polish capital market. He claimed that supervision of the GPW, clearing houses and depositories went to ESMA in Paris, and that Germany secured a full exclusion for Frankfurt while Poland got nothing. Fellow PiS members of the European Parliament Beata Szydło and Daniel Obajtek took a similar line. The finance ministry's position rests on the Member States' common stance of 9 October, under which Polish institutions remain under national supervision.