**Mairead McGuinness**
On October 7, Ms. Mairead McGuinness was approved by the European Parliament as the new Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services, and the Capital Markets Union. She replaced former Irish Commissioner Phil Hogan who was forced to resign from his role as Commissioner for Trade in August following the ‘golfgate’ scandal. She has now formally started her role and reports to Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis who was also appointed Trade Commissioner and retains overall responsibility for economic policy as Executive Vice President of the European Commission.
Commissioner McGuinness comes to the financial services portfolio at a time of considerable economic and societal upheaval in Europe as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and of course significant political changes as a result of UK’s departure from the EU. Top of the new Commissioner’s inbox will be pushing forward the EU’s ambitious Sustainable Finance agenda, as well as the COVID-19 Recovery Package. Critically, members can expect DG FISMA’s objectives to remain largely the same under Ms McGuinness’ leadership as we understand Director General Berrigan (also of Ireland) will remain in post for up to twelve months to support the transition.
Since the Commissioner’s appointment, Ms McGuiness has been keen to build a strong team around her. She announced that Peter Power (IE), previously in Hogan’s Cabinet, and Nathalie de Basaldua (ES – FR), former principal advisor for DG FISMA, will be leading her team as Head and Deputy Head of Cabinet respectively. The portfolios are divided as follows:
Summary of her agenda for 2020-2024 for investment management
Commissioner McGuinness committed to developing a deep and fully integrated CMU, with a particular focus on pension provision, retail participation, financial education and supervisory convergence. In her hearing, she gave particular emphasis to ‘strategic autonomy’ for the EU on financial services and cautioned against the EU being ‘too dependent’ on third countries for the provision of financial services.
Ms. McGuinness reaffirmed the importance of delivering on the promise of the EU Green Deal and the importance of putting the European citizen at the centre of discussions on this issue. She made clear that the Sustainable Finance agenda would remain at forefront of all policy developments under her leadership, with the renewed sustainable finance strategy and legislative proposal on EU Green Bond Standard.
Ms McGuinness pledged to ensure financial rules are fit to accommodate the progressive digitalisation of financial services, particularly for retail consumers. Her priority is now to find a common approach to crypto-currency.
The new Commissioner took a strong stance on AML rule and the potential creation of an EU-level AML supervisor to coordinate approaches amongst national authorities. Ms McGuinness paid due attention to the issues associated with the supervision of WireCard by German Authorities, and pressed for a fresh approach in how the EU plans to supervise those in its growing Digital Finance sector.
Under pressure from central EU Member Sates, and the need to demonstrate a degree of independence, Ms McGuinness gave her clear support for ‘fair taxation’ in Europe, with a particular focus on the possibility of an EU Financial Transaction Tax, delivery of Country-by-Country Reporting, and a digital corporate tax.
As the first female financial services Commissioner, Ms McGuinness has placed gender equality in the financial services sector, and especially ‘at board level and management level’ on top of her agenda. She also openly supported the ‘Women on Board’ directive, a legislative proposal setting a target of at least 40% of non-executive directors of the under-represented sex for listed companies, which has been stuck in the Council since 2012.