News

UNI Europa welcomes the European Ombudsman’s criticism of the way the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) appointed its key advisory group, the Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group (SMSG), in 2011.

The Ombudsman’s reply follows complaints from UNI Europa dating back to 2011 that the selection of SMSG members was not done according to the legal obligation to ensure a balanced proportion between the different categories, and ensuring a geographical and gender balance. Non-industry representatives were under-represented and the definition of who can be considered to be a “user” or “employee” representative were loosely interpreted.

According to ESMA, its priority was not to ensure a numerical equality among all categories but the representation of all different views. The Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, states however that ESMA has committed instances of maladministration in its selection of SMSG members. ESMA not only failed to respect the numerical equality among the categories of “users”, “consumers” and “employees” but also caused the latter two categories to be clearly under-represented.

As regards the definition of categories, in 2011 no seat was given to a genuine employee representative. Candidates supported by the European trade union movement were ignored and ESMA has not set up any kind of dialogue with UNI Europa. The Ombudsman finds that ESMA has failed to properly explain its choice, which is an instance of maladministration, and considers that what needs to be examined in each case is if a selected member is indeed able to act as an objective and dedicated employee representative.

The vague interpretation of what an “employee” representative is has been raised as a strong concern in the European Commission’s consultation on the review of the European system of supervision. With the European trade union movement putting forward highly qualified candidates in the selection for the European Supervisory Authorities’ stakeholder groups, the definition could be made easy and should be clearly stated.

UNI Europa’s Regional Secretary, Oliver Röthig added that “even though having two trade union affiliated employee representatives in the newly formed SMSG is an improvement, as the Ombudsman recognises, “in balanced proportions” means at least three seats for employees. We therefore hope that ESMA has taken the Ombudsman’s criticism on board and look forward to hearing how it in the future will secure an overall balanced representation with at least three seats for employee representatives.”

The Ombudsman’s ESMA reply follows its reply to a similar complaint made for the European Banking Authority.

See also: UNI Europa press release from 12 November.

The European Ombudsman’s reply is available at: www.ombudsman.europa.eu