The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published Guidelines aimed at facilitating cooperation arrangements and the exchange of information between individual national competent authorities and between those authorities and ESMA, in the application of their responsibilities under Union law relating to the securities and markets area. The Guidelines take account of the establishment of ESMA, other developments in Union law and incorporate cooperation procedures agreed between the authorities and ESMA in the form of a new multilateral memorandum of understanding (MMoU). The new MMoU enters into force on 29 May 2014 and updates the existing MMoU on the Exchange of Information and Surveillance of Securities Activities which was agreed by the members of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR), formerly the Forum of European Securities Commissions, on 26 January 1999. These Guidelines and the new MMoU, as with the CESR MMoU, have been agreed in view of the increasing internationalisation, harmonisation and interdependence of financial services and markets in the Union with the aim of optimising the efficiency and consistency of cooperation between the authorities.