The final EU Regulations establishing the new European supervisory structure were published on 15 December 2010. The structure includes the three new European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) that took over from the previous Lamfalussy level 3 committees and are the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA).

The ESAs are designed to have an enhanced role in European supervision and play an active part in the development of a single European rulebook. The Regulations establishing the ESAs call on them to play an active role in building a common EU supervisory culture and consistent supervisory practices to ensure uniform procedures and consistent regulatory approaches throughout the EU.

The ESAs' enhanced role has recently been mentioned by Michel Barnier (EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services) during his inaugural visit to the EBA. Barnier has made it clear that the EBA will be a centre of activity for European regulation and that its role will be much more than coordination and co-operation. He argued that a strong and solid financial sector in the EU needs more convergence between member states both on rules and supervisory practices. In particular he said that: "We need to work together towards a single EU rulebook."

Barnier's sentiments have been echoed by Steven Maijoor, the newly appointed chairman of ESMA when he recently gave a speech at the ISDA AGM. ESMA is already responsible for the day-to-day regulation of European credit rating agencies but Maijoor expects it to have direct supervisory responsibility of trade repositories. He also repeated Barnier's sentiments that as an ESA ESMA would have a "major role" in contributing to the single EU rulebook. Maijoor also asserted that ESMA would have an important role to play in the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) for instance drafting technical standards for the practical implementation of the revised MiFID and determining when a derivative would be sufficiently liquid so as to be traded on an organised platform.

Whilst the ESAs have only been in existence since January this year we will be seeing a lot of them this year and their importance in the European regulatory reform programme should not be underestimated.