Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets chair outlines safeguards for supervisory independence in Financieele Dagblad column

In a column in Financieele Dagblad, Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) chair Laura van Geest draws lessons from political pressure on independent oversight in the United States and assesses how resilient the Netherlands’ supervisory “checks and balances” are. She frames supervisory independence as resting on three practical pillars, appointment arrangements, funding, and autonomy in executing the mandate, with institutional authority and disciplined use of powers as an additional line of defence. On appointments, she argues that fixed, non-renewable terms longer than the political cycle, like those used for the European Central Bank, reduce incentives to please politics, while noting that in the Netherlands a second term is often the default for bodies such as De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the AFM and the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), and that term lengths vary from four years (AFM) to seven years (DNB, ACM and inspectorates). Funding can also be used to weaken supervision, including assigning new tasks without resources or imposing broad cuts; she contrasts state-funded inspectorates with sector-funded models where cost pressures can incentivise keeping supervisory budgets too low, and points to the publicly set cost framework used for DNB and the AFM as a structured approach to funding new tasks with productivity expectations. On operational autonomy, she stresses that prioritisation should follow the supervisor’s own risk analysis and cites the Inspector Council’s concern that proposed legislation would restrict inspectorates’ autonomy; she also cautions against overreach and “extra-legal” threats, while urging early identification of emerging risks and a mix of enforcement and engagement, including where supervisors can only influence outcomes through public signalling, such as the AFM’s warnings on crypto legislation.