Mellowing Meroni: how ESMA can help build the single market

On January 22nd, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) gave its longawaited opinion in the case concerning the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).1 The ruling is important in order to appreciate the modern understanding of the Meroni non-delegation doctrine. It is not the purpose of this CEPS Commentary to provide a fully-fledged analysis of the ESMA ruling,2 but rather to extract the potential implications of the ESMA case for the place and significance of the Meroni doctrine in building up the single market. We aim to demonstrate that the ESMA case is yet another manifestation of a slow process of “mellowing Meroni’. This is a critical condition for a new single market strategy aiming to end the remaining fragmentation of the single market – not only in financial markets but also in network industries – and ensure its ‘proper functioning’.