Today, the European Commission has adopted the final rules on the regulation of commodities markets and position limits. The package completes the rulebook of secondary measures under the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, known as MIFID II, and gives market participants time to prepare for its application, as of 3 January 2018.
Kay Swinburne, ECR negotiator on MiFID II and Coordinator of the ECR group said-
“The Commission’s adoption of the rules on Position limits today is an important step towards ensuring the markets are fair and effective for both financial intermediaries and the real economy.
“It has been a tortuous process to legislate on this complicated area, however these rules strike a good balance that will give national supervisors, who are close the markets, the correct tool box of powers to effectively monitor and supervise the markets.
“Some will never be content until all financial actors are excluded from the commodity derivatives markets, however I know from spending time with groups like the National Farmers Union from my own constituency that they consider the involvement of financial actors to be essential to ensuring liquidity and well-functioning markets.
“It is now time to stop political point scoring and allow enough time for implementation of these provisions ahead of the January 2018 implementation date. There is still a lot of work for both ESMA and the national supervisors to undertake and we need to provide legal certainty to everyone as soon as possible.”