The board of supervisors (BoS), which is the main decision-taking body of the ESMA held its first meeting on 11 January at the ESMA’s premises in Paris. The BoS is made up of the heads of the relevant national regulatory supervisors from across Europe.
At its inaugural meeting, Carols Tavares, who is the chairman of the Portuguese CMVM, was elected as the vice-chairman of the ESMA. Tavares chaired the CESR, the ESMA’s predecessor from July to December 2010 and served as vice-chairman since February 2009 – he will also be the acting chairman of the ESMA until the elected chair takes his place.
“Much has been achieved to ensure a successful transformation of CESR to ESMA, nevertheless ESMA has significant new responsibilities which we will need to exercise mindfully and gradually over the coming years,” said Tavares.
“The national competent authorities will be active partners in ensuring the success of ESMA and in the framework of the new European System of Financial Supervision. ESMA must deliver effectively in contributing to more efficient and sound European financial markets and, through this, promotes a more competitive European economy. ”
At the same meeting, members of ESMA’s BoS also set up the management board (MB) of ESMA by electing its first six members.
The Members of the MB are: Karl-Burkhard Caspari, BaFin, Germany; Jean Guill, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier, Luxembourg; Alexander Justham, Financial Services Authority, UK; Raul Malmstein, Finantsinspektsioon Estonia; Kurt Pribil, Finanzmarktaufsicht, Aus-tria; Fernando Restoy, Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores, Spain.
The first set of key internal rules and procedures defining how ESMA will function were also adopted. Among these were rules and procedures on issues such as terms of reference for both the BoS and the MB, the decision making process for the adoption of technical standards and guidelines, as well as an HR pack-age, including the code of conduct and a financial set of rules.
ESMA also confirmed today that all existing Level 3 measures issued by CESR remain valid under ESMA in their original status.
