The Lamfalussy process is an approach to the development of
financial service industry regulations used by the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
. Originally developed in March 2001, the process is named after the chair of the EU advisory committee that created it,
Alexandre Lamfalussy. It is composed of four "levels", each focusing on a specific stage of the implementation of
legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...
.
At the first level, the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
and
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and less formally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven institutions of the European Union (EU) a ...
adopt a piece of legislation, establishing the core values of a law and building guidelines on its implementation. The law then progresses to the second level, where sector-specific committees and regulators advise on technical details, then bring it to a vote in front of member-state representatives. At the third level, national regulators work on coordinating new regulations with other nations. The fourth level involves compliance and enforcement of the new rules and laws.
The Lamfalussy process has provided a significant impetus in delivering successful agreements on four key measures of the
Financial Services Action Plan: the
Market Abuse Directive, adopted on 3 December 2002; the
Prospectus Directive
Prospectus may refer to:
* Prospectus (finance), also called a ''concept note''
* Prospectus (university)
* Prospectus (book)
* ''Prospectus'' (album), a 1983 album by saxophonist Steve Lacy
* Parkland College's newspaper
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