In an open letter, Vincent Derudder appealed to members of the European Federation of Financial Advisers and Financial Intermediaries to ensure the successful implementation of the European Commission’s smart regulation agenda.
He said the Commission had begun to implement its Regulatory Fitness and Performance programme in response to the results of the recent EU elections and had begun to act to make EU law “lighter, simpler and less costly” by presenting a number of new initiatives, withdrawing pending proposals and repealing existing legislation.
Victim
He described Europe as being a “victim of costly and useless overregulation” before criticising the region’s previous regulatory framework.
“On 25 March the people of Europe said largely “no” to Europe, either by abstaining, or by voting for the so-called “anti-European” candidates. But they didn’t say no to Europe, they said “no” to a certain Europe,” he wrote.
“They don’t want any more of this Europe of unemployment, higher taxes and over regulation.”
He added that the elections sent a “clear message” to Brussels that Europe is tired of the “tsunami of useless, costly and burdensome new regulations” imposed by the civil servants and “other irresponsible bodies”.
The EU’s smart regulation scheme was launched in 2010 and is aimed at assessing the impact of policies, legislation, trade agreements and other measures through the use of roadmaps, commission impact assessments, evaluations, and public consultations.
More time
The news comes after the director general of EFAMA, Peter De Proft, said the European financial industry feels ‘rushed’ into implementing the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II), last week.
He said that the European Fund and Asset Management Association supports MiFID II, which is aimed at increasing financial transparency, but feels it should be given more time to decide on its implementation.
Derudder stood down as chairman of FECIF to take the role of honorary chairman in April. David Charlet, who is also president of ANACOFI, the main French national association for financial intermediaries, became chairman while Paul Stanfield, chief executive of the Federation of European Independent Financial Advisers, was appointed as secretary general.
In April last year, Derudder wrote a letter to to Algirdas Semeta, European Commissioner responsible for taxation, customs, statistics, audit and anti-fraud, calling EU initiatives to tackle tax abuse “dangerous” and “excessively burdensome”.
