The European Union is postponing a vote on a law regulating cryptocurrencies
CriptoFácil – The European Union intends to vote in February on the new block cryptocurrency legislation, the Regulating Cryptocurrency Markets (MiCA). However, technical problems in the European bloc delayed the vote by at least two months.
According to initial forecasts, the European Parliament intended to hold the vote in February 2023. But due to problems, they had to postpone the vote to April.
According to a parliament spokesperson, the delay is “technical” and has nothing to do with the disagreements. The spokesperson stated that there was an alleged error in translating the law document, which is about 400 pages long. The translation is done in all 24 official languages of the bloc, which increases the potential for errors.
The EU postpones the MiCA vote
Initially, Parliament was going to hold the final vote on the MiCA project still in 2022. However, MEPs decided to postpone everything to February 2023. The postponement happened to give parliamentarians time to study the project and avoid any problems.
Among these problems are the technical difficulties of the law, given the size of the text. According to Parliament, the fear was that this would make it take longer for MiCA to be approved. Therefore, it was decided to allow more time.
After the collapse of FTX, members of the European Parliament in the European Union criticized the cryptocurrency market and said that MiCA could have prevented it. However, the law contains a significant flaw that allows institutions such as FTX to continue serving EU clients.
For this reason, and because of other problems, the law has undergone several revisions with the new deadline. Now, with the new postponement, MPs will have more time to review.
MiCA will be subject to the last vote. If approved, the project will enter into force after the deadline set by law. But the text still needs to be formally approved not only by lawmakers, but by the national governments that make up the EU’s Governing Council.
If approved, MiCA will affect all 27 member states of the European Union. However, each national regulator will be responsible for implementing the rules and penalties set forth in the law.
France calls for stricter regulation
Due to the postponement of MiCA, the European Parliament has also postponed voting on other cryptocurrency industry rules. For example, the April session will also decide to pass the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR).
The total fertility rate is a set of laws that the European Union intends to implement in conjunction with the US Penal Code. But its purpose specifically includes identity verification, known as Know Your Customer (KYC). According to the TFR, any cryptocurrency transaction must contain data of both the recipient and the sender.
That is, the new law eliminates the privacy of many wallets, including the so-called non-custodial wallets. Indeed, many countries consider anti-terrorism law to be too lenient and call for stricter legislation.
Such is the case with regulators in France, the second largest economy in the European Union, who are pushing for compulsory licensing of cryptocurrency firms in 2023.
by CryptoFacil