The European Commission yesterday responded to the letter sent to them by ESMA  a few weeks ago, asking for clarification on the definition of a derivative for FX and Physical Commodity forwards, a copy of which can be seen here.

There are a few pointers in the FX part of the response, but the commodities portion does not provide us with much clarity for now. However it does offer some hope in that it makes clear that a combination of ESMA and also those drafting MiFID II should ultimately sharpen the definition.

Until then we are none the wiser.