Update December 12th

• Trade Reporting State Date is now Feb 12th
• Draft RTS for mandated clearing now Sept 2014

Update July 5th

• Registration of Trade Repositories moved to 24th Sept from 25th June
• Reporting start for everything moved to 1st Jan 2014, from 23rd September

Source: http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/European-Market-Infrastructure-Regulation-EMIR

UPDATE 25th May 2013: Changes to earliest date for RTS Two changes on the official EMIR timeline below:

• The earliest date on which a CCP can be authorised is now the 15th September, assuming the CCP applied well before that date. This isn't a big deal, more of a correction. The prior date was 15th April 2013 – implying an NCA could achieve authorisation within a month, not likely.
• The earliest date on which ESMA will publish their Recommended Technical Standards on which products they believe should be cleared has moved from 16th October 2013 to 15th Mar 2014 – a delay of 5 months. I assume that means no clearing in Europe can take place until Mar 15th at the earliest under the new EMIR rules – even if a CCP has been granted authorisation to do so.

Source: http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/European-Market-Infrastructure-Regulation-EMIR

UPDATE 18th March: New timeline from ESMA:

Source: http://www.esma.europa.eu/page/European-Market-Infrastructure-Regulation-EMIR

Also: EMIR Q&A EMIR Q&A 2013-03-20 (2013-324)

UPDATE Mar 4th: ESMA made another timeline update, here's the corresponding timeline courtesy of Tom Riesack at Capco (Twitter: here, LinkedIn here).

Download the accompanying PDF by clicking here: EMIR Timeline (Update as of 4.3.2013) v2

UPDATE 27th Feb: A new cleaned up chart provided by Tom Riesack at Capco (Twitter: here, LinkedIn here), and an explanation of the route through the timing:

Also available as a PDF: EMIR Timeline 27th Feb

Standards

The steps depicted herein show the codified steps in European legisation for any regulation to enter into force

1. ESMA publishes the regulatory standards for review by European Commission, European Council and European Parliament (the so-called Trilogue process)
2. EC endorses the standards
3. Council and EP do not have objections to the standards as set out by ESMA
4. The standards are being published in the Office Journal of the European Union
5. 20 days later officially published regulations enter into force

OTC

This section is about the clearing obligation being defined and put into a respective regulatory standard. The clearing obligation is nothing more than defining which products are ought to be cleared via a clearing house and by when.

1. In the first step market participants (that will mostly be clearing houses) will notify ESMA of products they deem clearable.
2. With the authorisation of a CCP by a national competent authority (NCA) a notification of the clearing obligation should be issued to all market participants
3. ESMA then has up to 6 months to draw up a draft regulatory technical standard (RTS) on the clearing obligation, which defines the classes of derivatives to be cleared and from which time on

CCP

This section is about the authorization process of CCPs under EMIR.

1. CCPs apply for authorization with ESMA to be recognized as an official CCP endorsed by ESMA – I would expect that to happen rather sooner than later – CCPs will have the required paperwork at the ready to submit as soon as the RTS enter into force on 15.3.2013
2. The national competent authority than has up to 6 months to check and approve the CCP application and thus authorize the CCP
3. Only section "OTC" and "CCP" together, once both are completed, will enforce clearing via clearing houses.

Trade Repository (TR)

This section focuses on the application and authorization process of TR's and the resulting reporting start dates.

1. After the RTS enter into force TR's have up to 2 months to apply for authorization and become registered. I know that the two big TR's in Europe (DTCC and REGIS-TR) are in the process of sending their application to ESMA.
2. Once the TR's have been registered, ESMA has up to 3 months to enforce reporting to TR's for IRS and CDS (there are discussions ongoing whether this already includes listed products or OTC only)
3. All other product types will need to reported from 1st  Jan 2014 onwards.
4. 2. and 3. are dependent on EMSA authorizing a TR in time.

UPDATE 7th Feb: The ECON Committee have reversed their objection. So the chart below still stands.

UPDATE 4th Feb: The EU Parliament rejected the ESMA Technical Standards, so this chart is now undone, and subject to a 3 to 6 month delay whilst ESMA consult with the market & politicians, to rewrite the rules, re-publish and start again.

UPDATE 8th Jan: The chart from ESMA changed! Good news they moved the furthest date in from July 2014 to March 2014 – that's what I call proactive project management!

Not sure why this wasn't more widely published, but the chart below is from the official ESMA page on EMIR here. The short answer is that clearing isn't likely to affect anyone in Europe until the end of Feb 2014, or maybe July 2014. I may hibernate until then. Click over to the ESMA site for their explanation of the chart.