Amendment of legislation on the procurement of euro banknotes

Guideline ECB/2011/3 of 18 March 2011 (OJ L of 1 April 2011), amending Guideline
ECB/2004/18 of 16 September 2004,25 on the procurement of euro banknotes was issued
in compliance with the requirement to review Guideline ECB/2004/18 at the beginning of
2008 and every 2 years thereafter.
The ECB Governing Council decided on 10 July 2003 that a single Eurosystem tender
procedure should apply to the procurement of euro banknotes at the latest from 1 January
2012 onwards. Thus national central banks (NCBs) that have an inhouse printing works, or
those using a public printing works may elect not to participate in the single Eurosystem
tender procedure. In such cases, these printing works will remain responsible for the production
of the euro banknotes that have been allocated to their NCBs in accordance with
the capital key but will be excluded from participating in the single Eurosystem tender
procedure.
The expected start date of the procedure described above may be changed by a Governing
Council decision where more than half of the national central banks (NCBs) representing
more than half of the Eurosystem’s total banknote printing requirement choose not to
participate.
Given that this situation has occurred, Guideline ECB/2011/3 changes the start date of the
single Eurosystem tender procedure from 1 January 2012 to 1 January 2014, unless the
Governing Council decides on a different start date.
The Guideline came into force on 20 March 2011.

Financial Regulation 2011

In 2011 Q2 a relatively small number of new financial provisions was promulgated in comparison with previous periods.
In the field of financial institutions, Spanish solvency law was amended to adapt it partially to recent Union legislation. The opportunity was taken to introduce a new legal regime governing additional contributions to credit institution deposit guarantee fund based on the remuneration of these instruments.
Also, amendments were made to adapt Spanish law on payment and securities settlement systems to Union legislation, particularly to recognise so-called “interoperable systems” and to extend to them the legal provisions on settlement finality in credit transfer orders.
In the European Union area, there were four notable new provisions: the amendment of TARGET legislation to enable the ECB to provide overnight credit to certain counterparty institutions not licensed as credit institutions; the regulation of mergers of public limited companies in order to unify the protection of shareholders’ and third parties’ interests in these processes in Member States; the updating of legislation on purchases of euro banknotes; and the amendment of the EU regulation on credit rating agencies to include the functions acquired by the new European Securities and Markets Authority.
Within the securities market, there were three new pieces of legislation: the adaptation of Spanish law to EU legislation on credit rating agencies; certain changes to the information required of foreign collective investment institutions registered in the CNMV registers; and the updating of collective investment institution categories based on investment policy.
Finally, a new law on consumer credit agreements writes into Spanish law the recent European legislation in this connection.