Tarek Tranberg,
Head of Public Affairs & Policy for the European Association of Corporate Treasurers (EACT)
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Much of the public discourse over the past weeks has focused on the scale, timing, and component elements of the EU’s Covid-19 recovery strategy – including the proposed recovery facility, the SURE temporary unemployment reinsurance schemes, the ECB’s PEPP and CSSP programmes.
In parallel, EU financial services policymakers within the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate General for Financial Services (DG FISMA) remain focused on delivering on the planned legislative initiatives in the area of financial services.
The pandemic has of course had an impact on some of these priorities, with either timelines for legislative proposals being slightly delayed or new proposals being added into the work programme that focus on making small, yet impactful tweaks, to existing legislation. The latter includes amendments to the EU’s Prospectus Regulation to ease the prospectus requirements for issuers that have already been listed for longer period of time on EU markets as well as an easing of the requirements for convertible bonds. The EC will also propose some targeted amendments to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID 2) to alleviate a number of product governance requirements, encourage a wider coverage and availability of SME investment research, and reduce the scope of the commodity position limits regime. Changes to the commodity position limits regime would potentially also include a new hedging exemption for corporates who have a market facing investment firm in their group structure.
Whilst these are short-term changes that are focused on reducing some perceived burdens of the current legislative framework to support market participants on their path to recovery after the pandemic, the EC in parallel remains focused on delivering on its initial legislative priorities.
These include:
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Tarek is in charge of EACT’s public affairs and policy advocacy efforts. He represents the interests of corporate treasurers on all aspects of European financial regulation with policymakers at EU – and where relevant – national level. Prior to this Tarek worked at FleishmanHillard – a public affairs consultancy - advising clients on securities markets’ infrastructure and in particular pre- and post-trading issues. Before joining FleishmanHillard, he worked at Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society in Berlin. Tarek holds a dual degree in Political Science and Law from the University of Münster and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He also holds a Master’s degree in Politics and Government in the EU from the LSE.