The European Union’s markets regulator is preparing to expand its authority to cover cryptocurrency exchanges and other operators, a move that officials say would better align supervision with the bloc’s new Crypto-Asset Markets (MiCA) framework.
Verena Ross, president of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), confirmed in an interview with the Financial Times that the European Commission is considering transferring supervision of several financial sectors, including crypto, from national regulators to ESMA.
Ross said the reform would help build “a more integrated and globally competitive European financial landscape”. The proposal aims to address “continued market fragmentation” and move closer to a unified capital market across Europe, she said.
Under the current MiCA regime, licenses for crypto-asset service providers are issued by national authorities rather than a central EU body.
So far, smaller member states have led the rollout. Lithuania granted its first license to discount brokerage Robinhood Europe earlier this year, while Malta has licensed major exchanges including OKX and Crypto.com. In Luxembourg, Bitstamp and Coinbase have also obtained MiCA licenses.
Ross argued that delegating supervision to individual countries created inefficiencies, requiring each national authority to develop its own expertise and monitoring systems. ESMA has also raised concerns about inconsistent authorization standards, including in a July review criticizing elements of Malta’s authorization process.
Established in 2011 following the 2008 global financial crisis, ESMA was created as part of the European System of Financial Supervision to harmonize financial regulation across the bloc.
MiCA, which came into force in June 2024, is the EU’s landmark crypto law, designed to create a unified framework for digital asset issuers and service providers across all 27 member states.
Related: Maltese regulator fines crypto exchange OKX $1.2 million for past AML violations
MiCA faces pressure on cross-border ‘passport’
ESMA’s efforts to streamline and unify crypto regulation collide with growing tensions between EU member states over the so-called “passport” rule – a key feature of the MiCA framework that allows companies licensed in one country to operate across the bloc without the need for separate approvals.
In a recent Cointelegraph podcast, Jérôme Castille, Head of Compliance at CoinShares, said that the biggest challenge facing MiCA is ensuring consistent implementation across all member states.
Marina Markezic, executive director of the European Crypto Initiative, a policy group advocating for industry-friendly regulation, said the problem is that “27 different competent national authorities oversee the same regulation.” She argued that this fragmented approach risked undermining the main objective of harmonization of the MiCA.
The passport system has sparked controversy among some of the bloc’s biggest markets. France, for example, is reportedly considering restricting crypto companies licensed elsewhere in the EU but wishing to operate within its borders – a move that critics say could breach single market principles.
“From what we have seen, blocking the granting of passports under MiCA is technically possible, although it comes with significant legal complexity,” Markezic said.
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