On 10 February, the European Commission formally proposed to delay the entry into application of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) by one year. The new date is set to be 3 January 2018. MiFID II is a very complex package adopted after the 2008 financial crisis. It strengthens the regulation of the financial market and its complexity requires significant technical changes to the hundreds of trading platforms across the EU. It also requires difficult adaptation for the national regulators and for their EU counterpart ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority). That is why the regulators and ESMA asked the EC to propose this delay. The EC agreed, but signaled that the adoption of the so-called level II measures, foreseen by MiFID II, will not be affected by the delay. Also, nothing changes for the member states which need to transpose the directive by mid-2016 – which is expected to be equally challenging.

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