On 4 December 2025, the European Commission introduced the Market Integration & Supervision (MIS) Package to strengthen EU financial market integration.
Key points:
• Direct ESMA oversight of major financial entities and cryptoasset service providers.
• Harmonized rules by converting key directives into regulations for consistent application.
• Goal: Improve market integrity, investor protection, and reduce fragmentation.
Implementation will take several years, with no immediate changes expected.
On 20 November 2025, the European Commission proposed major changes to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) to simplify disclosures and strengthen investor protection. The new framework introduces three product categories—Transition, Sustainable, and ESG Basics—each requiring a 70% investment commitment and exclusion of harmful industries. Simplified two-page templates will replace current disclosure rules, and entity-level obligations like principal adverse impacts are removed.
Only products in these categories may use sustainability-related terms in marketing. Taxonomy disclosures become optional, with a 15% safe harbor for aligned assets. Application is expected 18 months after adoption, likely in 2028, marking a significant shift toward clearer, stricter sustainability standards.
On 26 February 2025, the European Commission adopted the Omnibus Simplification Package, aimed at reducing regulatory burdens related to sustainability reporting for European companies. This initiative amends several key directives, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU Taxonomy Regulation.
These proposals aim to streamline reporting obligations, enhance competitiveness and adjust the scope and timelines of existing regulations.
On 27 January 2025, the law deriving from draft Bill No. 7961 (“Law”) introducing significant changes to the laws governing the Register of Beneficial Owners (Registre des Bénéficiaires Effectifs (RBE)) and the Trade and Companies Register (Registre de Commerce et des Sociétés) was published in the Luxembourg official journal.
These changes align with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 22 November 2022, aiming to balance transparency for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism purposes with enhanced privacy protections.
On 14 May 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published guidelines on fund names using environmental, social and governance (ESG) or sustainability-related terms. The main purpose of these guidelines is to enhance investor protection with regard to funds named in ways suggesting an investment focus in companies that meet certain sustainability standards. Against this backdrop and after the public consultation launched on 18 November 2022, ESMA clarifies what investors may expect in terms of policies, practices and characteristics of funds consistent with sustainability standards, as also the circumstances where a fund name with ESG or sustainability-related terms is indicative of unfair, unclear or misleading practices.
On 26 March 2024, Directive (EU) 2024/927 amending the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive and the Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities Directive relating to delegation arrangements, liquidity risk management, supervisory reporting, provision of depositary and custody services and loan origination by alternative investment funds (AIFMD II or “Directive”) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
AIFMD II will enter into force on 15 April 2024.
On 7 February 2024, the European Parliament voted on the proposed Directive amending the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (2011/61/EU) (AIFMD) and the UCITS Directive (2009/65/EC) relating to delegation arrangements, liquidity risk management, supervisory reporting, provision of depositary and custody services, and loan origination by alternative investment funds.
The text of the directive will now be voted by the European Council. Once fully voted upon, the directive will enter into force on the 20th day of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
EU member states will have two years from the directive’s entry into force to transpose it within their national law.
The regulatory reform of European long-term investment funds enters into force on 10 January 2024, following its approval by the European Parliament and the Council in February 2023.
Regulation (EU) 2023/606 aims at revitalizing a vehicle that was put in place back in 2015 but which, in the words of the Regulation itself, “did not scale up as expected.”
With this in mind, the new regime tackles the shortfalls identified both on the managers’ side- as they will now find themselves dealing with a much more flexible product in items such as eligible assets, borrowing, or concentration and diversification rules – as well as on the side of the investors, notably retail investors, whose access to this investment product now becomes simpler.
On 28 June 2023, the EU Commission published its long-awaited package of reforms to the EU payments regulatory regime. Deeming the package an “evolution not a revolution” of the EU payments framework, the Commission has published proposals for:
• A third Payment Services Directive repealing and replacing the Payment Services Directive and Electronic Money Directive
• A new Payment Services Regulation, which will harmonize and directly apply most of the conduct obligations imposed on payments firms
• A new Regulation on a framework for financial data access, relating to open finance
• A new Regulation on the establishment of a digital euro
On 24 March 2023, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier issued a press release requesting certain alternative investment fund managers, management companies of undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities and institutions for occupational retirement provision to participate in the data collection exercise relating to pre-contractual product disclosure information under Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector as amended and Regulation (EU) 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment as amended.