The Cyprus Ministry of Finance has invited comments from interested parties in connection with three public consultations being carried out by the European Commission relating to:

• the efficacy of the EU regulatory framework for financial services, particularly empirical evidence and concrete feedback on:
  • Rules affecting the ability of the economy to finance itself and growth;
  • Unnecessary regulatory burdens;
  • Interactions, inconsistencies and gaps;
  • Rules giving rise to unintended consequences;
• the review of the European Venture Capital Funds regulation (No 345/2013) and European Social Entrepreneurship Funds regulation (No 346/2013) with a view to improve the take-up of these funds as part of the Action Plan package. Although these specialist venture capital investment funds have been available since 2013, only a small number of such funds have been launched;
• the effectiveness and robustness of national covered bond markets, with a view to assessing the convenience of a possible future integrated European covered bond framework that could help improve funding conditions throughout the Union and facilitate cross-border investment and issuance in Member States currently facing practical or legal challenges in the development of their covered bond markets.

The consultations are open until 6 January 2016.