Towards a new Approach to Regulation and Supervision in the EU: Post-FSAP and Comitology

The aim of this paper is to analyse the progress made in the process of European integration from two points of view: regulation and supervision. We first briefly outline the main steps in the development of the Financial Services Action Plan - FSAP and the process of Comitology, defined by the Committee of Wise Men (Lamfalussy Committee). We then provide an initial evaluation of the new regulatory system, with its merits and flaws: while the definition and completion of the FSAP has been an undoubted success, some aspects still have to be dealt with, several of them with problematical connotations, considered in the Financial Services Agenda 2005-2010 The transposition into national regulations of a complex body of wide-ranging standards is a difficult process in terms of both times and procedures, although the functioning of the Comitology structure has been met with general approval. There is also the problem of a supervisory structure which retains its national basis, but onto which the output generated by the Committees envisaged by the Lamfalussy process is gradually being grafted, possibly leading towards a new framework of controls at a European level.