European Commission de-prioritises the adoption of 115 Level 2 acts under EU financial services legislation

On 6 October 2025, the European Commission published a letter from its Directorate‑General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union to the Chairs of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and the Chair of the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) confirming that the European Commission considers 115 Level 2 acts under various EU financial services Directives and Regulations to be “non-essential” for the effective functioning of those Level 1 acts and the achievement of EU policy objectives. The Commission will not adopt these Level 2 acts, which include regulatory technical standards (RTS), implementing technical standards (ITS) and Commission delegated acts, before 1 October 2027.

The de-prioritisation of these Level 2 acts should be viewed in the context of the Commission’s ‘Simplification and Implementation’ initiative, which seeks “simpler, lighter, and faster EU regulation” to strengthen EU competitiveness and growth. Indeed, the Commission’s letter references the large number of Level 2 acts due to be adopted in the area of financial services (430) and acknowledges that this has been a concern for stakeholders.

The Commission has consulted and discussed the planned de-prioritisation with the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and staff of the ESAs and AMLA, so it may be assumed that these EU institutions and regulators support the approach.

Where the Commission is legally required to adopt a Level 2 act within a specified timeframe, it will propose to amend or repeal the relevant empowerment under the Level 1 act.

Set out below is a list of de-prioritised Level 2 acts under Level 1 legislation that are most relevant to the banking and investment sectors (i.e. the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD), the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR)).

The full list of de-prioritised Level 2 acts are set out in an Annex to the Directorate‑General’s letter. They fall under other sectoral legislation such as the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation, the ESG Ratings Regulation, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, the Market Abuse Regulation and legislation forming the EU’s new anti-money laundering package, for example.

CRD

• ITS on templates for intermediate parent undertaking monitoring threshold (Art. 21b(6))
• RTS on the minimum information to be provided in a notification relating to a proposed acquisition of a qualifying holding in a credit institution (Art. 23(6))
• RTS on the definition of exposures to default risk which are material in absolute terms and the thresholds for large numbers of material counterparties and positions in debt instruments of different issuers (Art. 77(4))

CRR 

• RTS on specifying the criteria for the use of data inputs in the risk-measurement model (Art. 325bc(6))
• RTS on the conditions and the criteria according to which an institution may be permitted not to count an overshooting (Art. 325bf(10))
• RTS on the categorisation of project finance, object finance and commodity finance and the determination of the ‘income-producing real estate’ category (Art. 147(11))
• RTS on collective investment undertakings trading book (Art. 325j(7))
• RTS on specifying further the conditions and the criteria for assigning exposures to the ‘Internal Ratings Based’ exposure classes (Art. 147(12))
• RTS on proxy spreads (Art. 383(7))

MiFID II

• RTS on position management controls for commodity derivatives (Art. 57(8))
• ITS on position reporting for commodity derivatives (Art 58(5))
• Delegated act amending Commission Delegated Regulation 2017/565 in respect of position reporting (Art. 58(6))
• Delegated act amending Commission Delegated Regulation 2017/565 in respect of order execution policy and reasonable commercial basis (Art. 27(9))
• Delegated act on market capitalisation thresholds and free float (Art. 51a(7))

MiFIR

• ITS on the content and format of the notification to be made by systematic internalisers (Art. 15(5))
• RTS on transaction reporting (Art. 26(9))
• RTS on reporting obligations for consolidated tape providers (CTPs) (Art. 27ha(2))
• RTS on the assessment of the suitability of the management body of data reporting service providers (Art. 27f(5))
• RTS specifying trading obligation for derivatives (Art. 32(1))
• RTS on reference data reporting (Art. 27(3))
• RTS on order record keeping (Art. 25(3))
• Delegated act on over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives identifying reference data for the purposes of transparency requirements (Art. 27(5))
• Delegated act on reports and reviews (core market data and regulatory data are provided on a reasonable commercial basis and arrangements applicable to CTPs (Art. 52(15))
• Delegated act amending the scope of OTC derivatives subject to transparency requirements (Art. 8a(4))

For further information or to discuss how we can assist your firm, please contact Patrick Brandt, Partner, Louise Hogan, Senior Associate, Ciara Brady, Senior Associate, Caroline O’Byrne, Senior Associate, Sarah Lee, Senior Knowledge Lawyer or any member of ALG's Financial Regulation Advisory team. 

Date published: 24 October 2025