EU Benchmarks Plan Too Demanding of Other Nations, Lawmaker Says

European Union lawmakers are set to overhaul draft rules for financial benchmarks on concerns that they could damage the functioning of markets by imposing excessively strict requirements on nations outside the bloc.

Plans set out by Michel Barnier, the EU’s financial services chief, for so-called equivalence assessments of whether non-EU countries meet its regulatory standards, are “not realistic,” Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, the EU parliament legislator leading the assembly’s work on the draft law, said in an interview.