European Single Access Point | Legislative Train Schedule (2024)

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The EUlegislation in the financial services area requires companies to publish several hundreds of documents, particulars and datasets in order to increase the transparency and reduce asymmetry of information. These datasets may have regard to e.g. an entity’s financial performance, environmental, social or governance matters, products and services provided.

On 25 November 2021, the Commission adopted a legislative proposal on the European Single Access Point (ESAP) .The ESAP will offer a single access point for public financial and sustainability-related information information about EU companies and EU investment products.

This will give companies more visibility towards investors, opening up more sources of financing. This is particularly important for small companies in small capital markets, as they will more easily be on the radar screen of EU, but also international investors.

The ESAP will also contain sustainability-related information published by companies, which will support the objectives of the European Green Deal. As a common data space, the ESAP isa fundamental enabler of the EU's Digital Strategy and the Digital Finance Strategy.

The establishment of the ESAP is the first actionin the Commission's new action plan on the Capital markets union 2020. In preparing the proposal, the Commission rana targeted consultation from20 January 2021 to 12 March 2021.

In the Parliament, the ECON Committee will be responsible for the file; IMCO Committee, JURI Committee and LIBE Committee will provide an opinion.

On 2 December 2021, the ECON Committee has appointed MEP Pedro Silva Pereira as rapporteur.

On 7 July 2022, the referral to the JURI Committee as associated committees has been announced in plenary. The JURI Committee has appointed MEP Pascal Durand as rapporteur.

In the Council, the Working Party on Financial Services and the Banking Union has started discussions on the proposal.

The proposal will be subject to the EU’s ordinary legislative procedure, having the European Parliament and the Council as co-legislators.

The European Economic Social Committee (EESC) has adopted its opinion in the plenary of 23-24 March 2022.

On 28 September 2022, the rapporteur has put forward his draft report.

On 9 November 2022, amendments have been tabled in the ECON Committee.

On 30 November 2022, the JURI Committee has adopted its opinion.

On 31 January 2023, the ECON Committee adopted its report, and voted to open interinstitutional negotiations.

On 13 February 2023, ECON Committee decision to enter into interinstitutional negotiations announced in plenary (Rule 71).

On 15 February 2023, ECON Committee decision to enter into interinstitutional negotiations confirmed by plenary (Rule 71).

On 23 May 2023, after interinstitutional negotiations, the Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement.

Under the provisional agreement, the ESAP platform is expected to be available from summer 2027 and gradually phased into allow for a robust implementation.

Based on coherent phases this phasing-in will ensure that European regulations and directives will in accordance with their priority enter into the scope of ESAP within four years.

This ensures that sufficient time is available to define and implement the required technical aspects of the project.

During this time, there will also be a regular assessment of ESAP’s functioning and a review clause that should guarantee the adequacy of the platform to the needs of its users and its technical efficiency.

From the start (phase 1),co-legislators agreed that the scope should include information according to the short selling regulation (EU) No 236/2012, the prospectus regulation (EU) 2017/1129 and the transparency directive 2004/109/EC.

Six months after ESAP has been made public (48 months after entry into force), phase 2 will begin. Thescope of phase 2will be quite large and include, among others, information according to sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector (SFDR) regulation, the credit rating agencies (CRA) regulation and the benchmark regulation.

During thethird and last phaserelevant information stemming from around 20 additional pieces of legislation are added to the scope, including the capital requirements regulation (CRR), the markets in financial instruments regulation (MiFIR) and the EU green bonds regulation (EUGBR).

On 17 July 2023, the provisional agreement has been approved in ECON committee.

On 9 November 2023, the agreed text has been adopted by the Parliament, in plenary.

On 27 November 2023, the Council adopted also the text.

On 13 December 2023, President of the Parliament and President of the Council signed the final act

On 20 December 2023, the regulation has been published in the Official Journal and entered into force 20 days after its publication, on 9 January 2024.

References:

• European Parliament Legislative Observatory, Procedural file on European Single Access Point, 2021/0378(COD)
• European Commission,Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing a European single access point providing centralised access to publicly available information of relevance to financial services, capital markets and sustainability, COM/2021/723
• European Commission, Targeted consultation on the establishment of a European single access point (ESAP) for financial and non-financial information publicly disclosed by companies
• European Economic Social Committee, European Single Access Point (ESAP)
• Council of the European Union, Easy access to corporate information for investors: Provisional agreement reached on the European Single Access Point (ESAP), press release, 23 May 2023.

Author:Stefano Spinaci, Members' Research Service,legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu