Recital 1

(1)Article 13 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 provides for a mechanism intended to establish solutions that ensure consistency between the legal requirements established by the Union and those of third countries in the field covered by that Regulation. Amongst those solutions, the Commission is empowered to adopt decisions declaring that the legal, supervisory and enforcement arrangements of a third country are equivalent to the requirements laid down in Articles 4, 9, 10 and 11 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 so that counterparties entering into a transaction within the scope of that Regulation, where at least one of the counterparties is established in that third country, are deemed to have fulfilled those requirements by complying with the requirements set out in that third country's legal regime. That declaration of equivalence allows avoiding the application of duplicative or conflicting rules and therefore contributes to the achievement of the overarching aim of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 to reduce systemic risk and increase the transparency of derivatives markets by ensuring an internationally consistent application of the principles agreed with the Union's international partners and laid down in that Regulation.