One of the Commission's three key objectives of the 2020 Capital Markets Union Action Plan was to make the EU a safer place for citizens to invest in the long term. 

The package includes wide-ranging measures to:  

• "Improve the way information is provided to retail investors about investment products and services, in ways that are more meaningful and standardised, by adapting disclosure rules to the digital age and investors' growing sustainability preferences;
• Increase transparency and comparability of costs by requiring the use of a standard presentation and terminology on costs.
• Ensure all retail clients receive at least annually a clear view of the investment performance of their portfolio; 
• Address potential conflicts of interest in the distribution of investment products by banning inducements for "execution-only” sales (i.e. where no advice is provided) and ensuring that financial advice is aligned with retail investors' best interests. Stricter safeguards and transparency will also be introduced where inducements are allowed;
• Protect retail investors from misleading marketing by ensuring that financial intermediaries are fully responsible for the use (and misuse) of their marketing communication, including where it is made via social media, or via celebrities or other third parties they remunerate or incentivise.
• Preserve high standards of professional qualifications for financial advisors.
• Empower consumers to make better financial decisions by encouraging Member States to implement national measures that can support citizens' financial literacy, regardless of their age, and social and educational background.
• Reduce administrative burdens and improve the accessibility of products and services for sophisticated retail investors, by making the eligibility criteria to become a professional investor more proportionate.
• Enhance supervisory cooperation to make it easier for national competent authorities and European Supervisory Authorities to ensure that rules are properly and effectively applied in a coherent manner across the EU and to jointly fight fraud and malpractices." 

The package is wide-ranging in scope and touches on the entire investment journey of the consumer. It consists of an amending Directive, which revises the existing rules set out in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD), the Undertaking for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers  Directive (AIFMD), and the taking-up and pursuit of the business of Insurance and Reinsurance Directive (Solvency II), as well as an amending Regulation, which revises the Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) Regulation.

The Commission also published Q&As on the Retail Investment Package and a Factsheet.

Based on a Commission proposal, the new rules complement the Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation (MiCA) and transfer in funds Regulation, and are consistent with the OECD initiative on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework.

The Directive will "improve Member States’ ability to detect and counter tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance", by requiring "all cryptoasset providers based in the EU – irrespective of their size – to report transactions of clients residing in the EU." 

The updated Directive has been extended in scope to include reporting obligations of "financial institutions regarding e-money and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the automatic exchange of information on advance cross-border rulings used by natural persons."

The new reporting requirements on cryptoassets, e-money and CBDCs will enter into force on 1 January 2026.

Section 6 covers the energy consumption of the ICT sector, with subsection 6.4  looking specifically at energy consumption of cryptocurrencies. 

Given the current energy crisis and the heightened risks for the coming winter, the Commission is urging Member States to "(i) implement targeted and proportionate measures to lower the electricity consumption of cryptoasset miners, in line with the proposed Council Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices, and (ii), also in a longer term perspective, to put an end to tax breaks and other fiscal measures benefitting cryptominers currently in force in certain Member States. In case there is a need for load shedding in the electricity systems, the Member States must also be ready to stop cryptoassets mining."

The Commission said it will develop a report by 2025 that includes a description of the environmental and climate impact of new technologies in the cryptoasset market. The report will also include an assessment of policy options to "mitigate adverse impacts on the climate of technologies used in the cryptoasset market, in particular in relation to consensus mechanisms."

The Commission also published FAQS on the action plan.

McGuinness encouraged the EU lawmakers to find a political compromise and speed up passage of MiCA. She said "MiCA rules will be the right tool to address the concerns on consumer protection, market integrity and financial stability." 

She added that had MiCA been in place, it could faciliate the implemention of sanctions against Russia as the sanctions also applied to crypto.  "Of course, sanctions implementation could be facilitated if our framework on crypto was in place, and if all cryptoasset service providers were regulated entities and subject to effective supervision in the European Union," said McGuinness.

The proposal strengthens consumer rights and foster the cross-border provision of financial services in the single market. This market has significantly evolved in light of the overall digitalisation of the sector and the new types of financial services that have been developed since the rules were first introduced in 2002. These developments have been further enhanced by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to an increase in online transactions.

It seeks to collect further information on expected impacts on key industries (financial intermediation, payment services, merchants), users (consumer associations, retailers’ associations), chambers of commerce and other stakeholders in international trade.

The targeted consultation will gather further evidence on the following issues:

• users’ needs and expectations for a digital euro;
• the digital euro’s role for the EU’s retail payments and the digital economy;
• making the digital euro available for retail use while continuing to safeguard the legal tender status of euro cash;
• the digital euro’s impact on the financial sector and the financial stability;
• application of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML-CFT) rules;
• the privacy and data protection aspects;
• international payments with a digital euro.

The deadline for responses is 14 June 2022.