On April 25, the European Commission (EC) published its first status report (Report) on work undertaken as part of the Action Plan on Building a Capital Markets Union (Action Plan), adopted and published by the EC in September 2015.

The Report is divided into three sections, and sets out actions achieved under the Action Plan since September 2015, work planned for the remainder of 2016, and initiatives scheduled for 2017 and 2018. In the funds context, it is worth highlighting the EC’s list of delivered initiatives including introducing a Proposal for a Regulation laying down common rules on securitization, work on supervisory convergence and the EC’s Call for Evidence for empirical data on the impacts and regulatory burdens of the European Union (EU) framework for financial services. Other key initiatives planned for completion by the end of 2016 include preparations for a public consultation to identify barriers to EU cross-border distribution of investment funds and further work to build on the Opinion issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in relation to loan origination by funds in April 2016.

For further information on the CMU programme and initiatives, see the Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest edition of October 9, 2015.

The Report is available here.

The EC’s accompanying press release is available here.