Legal supervision of the European Union capital markets

A new regulatory structure emerged in the European Union since the early 1990s and this new architecture served to expand the classical executive capacity of the European Commission. In the face of the workload created by the ever-expanding field of activity of the Union, the execution of many administrative tasks was left to the European Agencies. Today, European Agencies are fully operational in a wide range of policy areas. It has been observed that in recent years Meroni doctrine which lays out the limits of the delegation of powers to agencies has evolved into a more flexible approach. In this study, this change in the Union's institutional law will be evaluated in terms of European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), an agency with extensive rule-making and decision-making powers for the supervision of the European Union capital markets. In this context, first chapter focuses on the need for a supervisory agency in the capital markets field and the sources of European capital markets law. In the second chapter, the institutional structure, powers and tasks of ESMA and its decision-making procedures are examined. Finally, third chapter deals with the judicial and non-judicial accountability mechanisms of ESMA. It is aimed to answer the question of whether the conundrum of independence, review of European Union acts and accountability related to these authorities can be resolved by existing legal remedies and strengthening procedural guarantees. It will be concluded that administrative law of the European Union has not yet developed effective answers to the problems raised.