What was the ECB High-Level Task Force on Simplification?
The ECB’s Governing Council created the High-Level Task Force on Simplification in March 2025 to develop proposals for simplifying the European regulatory, supervisory and reporting framework, while still maintaining a strong banking sector in Europe.
The task force’s creation came amid an ongoing global debate about the complexity of financial rules and regulation, and its focus was consistent with the European Commission’s overall initiative on simplification.
What did the task force propose?
The proposals for simplification are outlined in the report Simplification of the European prudential regulatory, supervisory and reporting framework, which was published in December 2025.
The recommendations cover three main areas: the regulatory framework, the supervisory framework and the reporting framework.
The proposals call for maintaining the current level of resilience of the European banking sector, upholding international cooperation through compliance with global standards, and full, timely and faithful implementation of the Basel III standards in all jurisdictions. They also aim to ensure the frameworks remain effective in meeting prudential objectives, taking a European perspective to foster increased harmonisation across Member States.
Who was on the task force?
The task force was chaired by former ECB Vice-President Luis de Guindos. It also included the Governing Council members of Estonia (Madis Müller), Finland (Olli Rehn), France (François Villeroy de Galhau), Germany (Joachim Nagel) and Italy (Fabio Panetta), and ECB Supervisory Board member Sharon Donnery.
What happens next?
In December 2025 the Governing Council endorsed the task force’s proposals to simplify EU banking rules. The proposals form the basis of the Eurosystem’s response to the European Commission’s consultation on the competitiveness of the EU banking sector. Published in April 2026, the response sets out how measures to simplify and harmonise the regulatory framework can address broader calls to help European banks become more competitive.
In July 2026, following this consultation, the European Commission published a report on the competitiveness of the banking sector and the single market in banking. The ECB will continue to contribute actively to the debate and legislative discussions as they develop.