As CriptoFácil reported last year, the European Union intended to vote in February on the bloc’s new cryptocurrency legislation, the Regulation of Cryptoactive Markets (MiCA). However, technical problems led the European bloc to postpone the vote by at least two months. According to initial forecasts, the European Parliament intended to hold the vote in February 2023. But because of the problems, they had to postpone the vote to April. According to a spokesman for Parliament, the delay is “technical” and has nothing to do with disagreements. The spokesperson stated that there was an alleged error in the translation of the law document, which is nearly 400 pages long. The translation is done in all 24 official languages of the block, which increases the possibility of errors.
European Union postpones MiCA vote
At first, Parliament would hold the final vote on MiCA still in 2022. However, MEPs decided to postpone everything to February 2023. The postponement occurred 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 the approval of the MiCA take even longer. Therefore, it was decided to allow more time. After the collapse of FTX, EU MEPs criticized the cryptocurrency market and said that MiCA could have prevented it. However, the law contains a significant flaw that allows organizations like FTX to continue serving EU customers. For this reason, and due to other problems, the law underwent several revisions with the new established deadline. Now, with the new postponement, deputies will have even more review time. MiCA will go through its last vote. If approved, the project will come into effect after the deadline established by law. But the text still needs to be officially approved not just by lawmakers, but by the national governments that make up the EU’s Board of Governors. If approved, MiCA will impact all 27 member countries of the European Union. However, each national regulator will have the responsibility to implement the rules and penalties established in the law.
France calls for stricter regulation
Because of the MiCA postponement, the European parliament has also postponed voting on other cryptocurrency industry rules. For example, the April session will also decide to pass the Funds Transfer Regulation (TFR). The TFR is a set of laws that the EU intends to implement concurrently with MiCA. But its purpose specifically involves identity verification, the infamous KYC. According to TFR, any cryptocurrency transaction must contain data of both the recipient and the sender. That is, the new law does away with the privacy of many wallets, including the so-called non-custodial wallets. And indeed, many countries consider MiCA to be too lenient and call for tougher legislation. Such is the case with regulators in France, the second largest economy in the EU, who are pushing for mandatory licensing of cryptocurrency companies in 2023.
