European Economic
and Social Committee
Civil society is ready to help the EU deal with the challenges posed by digital finance
Digital finance urgently needs to be regulated and the European Commission is on the right track to do so. This is the main message of three EESC opinions adopted at the February plenary session, in which the Committee throws its support behind the Commission's latest proposals for regulation of the digital financial sector.
In the opinion drafted by Petru Sorin Dandea and Jörg Freiherr Frank von Fürstenwerth, the Committee endorses the Commission's proposal on the digital finance strategy and stresses that the major challenges in the EU financial sector resulting from digitalisation must be tackled head on. Digitalisation brings major opportunities but also presents risks that cannot be overlooked and require swift action.
On the same wavelength is the opinion written by Giuseppe Guerini, where the EESC backs the Commission's two initiatives on markets in crypto-assets and on a pilot regime for market infrastructure based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). In this area, measures are urgently needed to regulate a technology that is becoming increasingly widespread, whose practical application is growing and which is constantly and rapidly changing.
Finally, in the opinion drawn up by Antonio GarcĂa del Riego, the Committee supports the Commission's proposal on the Digital Operational Resilience (DORA), as it aims to bring legal clarity to the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) risk provisions, reduce regulatory complexity, establish a common set of standards to mitigate ICT risks and facilitate a harmonised supervisory approach. It also seeks to provide legal certainty and the necessary safeguards for financial firms and ICT providers. (mp)