The European Securities and Markets Authority has publicised its priorities and plans for 2016.

ESMA is signalling a shift from rule-making towards 'implementation' and the promotion of 'convergence' for supervisory practices. Its key priorities for 2016 are as follows.

* Supervisory convergence, i.e. the implementation, supervision and enforcement of rules that all European Union countries are to have in common. To this end, ESMA wants to produce a so-called work programme and continue its co-operation with something it calls "the Joint Committee" to ensure 'sectoral consistency';

* The second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and its accompanying regulation – work on this will continue to dominate ESMA's activity in 2016, but in line with the shift in priorities it will focus particularly on the development of guidelines, questions and answers. "Single rulebook activity," whatever that is, will also continue as ESMA still has a range of technical standards to draw up.

* Data collection and management – the 2015-2017 IT 'work programme' will be dominated by various requirements to do with MiFID II/MiFIR for data collection and reporting. ESMA will also build tools and collect data related to CRA supervision and the protection of investors from sharp practice. It will continue to develop systems in support of its supervision, risk monitoring and 'single rulebook' activities, including two projects on which it has already embarked on behalf of national regulators on "financial instruments reference data" and access to trade repositories.

The 2016 'work programme' is based on a budget of €40,437,589 and a staff of 210.