The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and the Commission de régulation de l'énergie (CRE) have signed a memorandum of understanding on the exchange of information, control and supervision of markets in greenhouse gas emission allowances, electricity, natural gas and their derivatives.
This agreement organises cooperation between the two regulators, not only on CO2 allowances, but also on electricity and gas markets.
In practical terms, this cooperation will result in the exchange of information and assistance between the AMF and the CRE within the framework of their control and supervision mission. The purpose is that the two authorities should share their respective information and expertise to identify risk factors on these markets.
The scope of the protocol concerns supervision of the following products:
* greenhouse gas emission allowances and derivatives in which such allowances are the underlying;
* electricity and derivatives in which electricity is the underlying;
* natural gas and derivatives in which natural gas is the underlying.
This agreement is one of the applications of the Law on Banking and Financial Regulation defining cooperation between the two regulators on the carbon market.
* This law allows admission of emissions allowances to trading on regulated financial instrument markets and grants powers to the AMF to supervise the CO2 spot market.
* It extends the mandate of the CRE to include supervision of transactions carried out in CO2 allowances by energy market participants, and to analyse their coherence with the economic and technical factors underpinning energy markets.
With this agreement, France is the first European country to anticipate the provisions of the draft EuropeanRegulation on Energy Markets Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) which the European Commission has just made public.