Europe

FSAP, Comitology and Lamfalussy: Europe’s trilogy for financial services regulation

Katie G McCaw, professional support adviser to the International Securities Group, with particular specialisation in international banking, securities and financial services regulation at Norton Rose.

A fundamental objective of the European Union (EU) is establishing and developing the single market in financial services.Whilst the founding Treaty, the Treaty of Rome of 1958, established the four fundamental freedoms: free movement of persons, free provision of services, free movement of goods and freedom of establishment, it was left to the Treaty on European Union, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, to provide for a further freedom - the freedom of movement of capital and payments. Maastricht laid the foundations for the introduction of the single European currency and the development of a single European capital market (although the bare Treaty provisions could never achieve this alone). The introduction in 1999 of the single European currency, the euro, within 12 (of the then 15) member states of the EU, served to reinforce the importance of the development of the single market in financial services and made those remaining barriers more prominent.