PURPOSE: to grant discharge to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) for the financial year 2016.
NON-LEGISLATIVE ACT: Decision (EU) 2018/1403 of the European Parliament on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Securities and Markets Authority for the financial year 2016.
CONTENT: the European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the Executive Director of the European Securities and Markets Authority for the implementation of the latter’s budget for the financial year 2016.
This decision is accompanied by a resolution of the European Parliament containing the observations which form an integral part of the discharge decision in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2016 (please refer to the summary dated 18.4.2018).
In this resolution, Parliament welcomed the fact that in the course of 2016, the Authority began to publish a register of staff meetings with external stakeholders and that whistleblowing rules have been successfully implemented as envisaged in the first half of 2017.
Parliament noted that, as the Authority’s workload is increasingly shifting from regulatory tasks to enforcing and applying the Union law, the Authority’s budget and manpower should be reallocated internally.
It noted that, according to the Court’s report, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union might affect the Authority’s activities since many significant supervised entities are currently located there. It noted with satisfaction that the Authority is engaging proactively with national competent authorities to understand the impact of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union on the supervision of the financial markets as well as its impact on the Authority.