Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. The international treatment of central banks and public entities managing public debt with regard to OTC derivatives transactions

The Regulation on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (EMIR) was adopted on 4 July 2012 and entered into force on 16 August 2012. EMIR requires the central clearing of all standardised OTC derivatives contracts (clearing obligation), margins for non-centrally cleared contracts (margins requirements) and the reporting of all derivatives contracts to trade repositories (reporting obligation).

The Union’s central banks and Union public bodies charged with or intervening in the management of public debt are exempted from EMIR and are, therefore, not subject to the clearing obligation, to risk-mitigation techniques for uncleared trades or to the reporting obligation.

At the time of adoption of EMIR, there were uncertainties on the treatment of foreign central banks in the application of OTC derivatives reforms in other jurisdictions. The European Parliament and the Council therefore postponed a decision on the application of EMIR to third-country central banks until more clarity could be reached on this issue.

The European Commission was requested under Article 1(6) of EMIR to analyse the international treatment of central banks and of public bodies managing public debt in other jurisdictions’ legal framework and to inform the European Parliament and the Council of its comparative analysis three months after the entry into force of EMIR. If the report concludes that the exemption of the monetary responsibilities of those third-country central banks from the clearing and reporting obligation is necessary, EMIR empowers the Commission to adopt a delegated act to extend the list of exempted entities under EMIR.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)158: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:158:FIN

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