The Council met on 4 of October and reached an agreement on a draft regulation aimed at increasing transparency and reducing risk in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. The Presidency of the EU, on behalf of the Council, will start negotiations with the European Parliament, with a view to reaching agreement at first reading.

The Council agreed a general approach on a draft regulation aimed at increasing transparency and reducing risk in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market. The new rule will regulate the derivative not traded on an exchange but instead privately negotiated between two counterparts. The compromise proposed by the presidency allows room for further technical work, in the context of trilogue negotiations with the Parliament, on third country provisions.

The draft regulation calls for reporting of all derivative contracts to trade repositories (i.e. central data centres) and the clearing of standardised - those that have met predefined eligibility criteria- OTC derivative contracts through central counterparties (CCPs) in order to reduce counterparty risk. CCPs are entities that interpose themselves between the two counterparties to a transaction and thus become the 'buyer to every seller', as well as the 'seller to every buyer'.

In February 2011, the Economic Affairs Committee held a debated around the draft report which recommended that new rules should govern only privately-traded derivatives, rather than all kinds as proposed by some Member States. Previously, in 2010 the Commission submitted the proposal for a regulation on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories, which is to be adopted by the Council and Parliament. This regulation aims to tackle the lack of transparency and accumulated risks which have been seen as as key factors for financial crisis following the considerable growth in global volumes of derivatives trading since the start of the last decade.