Speakers
Objectives
10 years after the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and 9 years after the launch of the first CMU initiative by the Juncker Commission, European banking and capital markets remain fragmented within the EU.
On 19 January 2021, the Commission issued a communication which sets out how the EU can reinforce its open strategic autonomy in the macroeconomic and financial fields. The Council Conclusions on the EU’s economic and financial strategic Autonomy (29 March 2022) recalls that “by building its strategic autonomy in an open economy, the EU’s goal is, in particular, to ensure the resilience of its economy and preserve its capacity to protect and develop its economic and financial interests”.
In terms of strategic autonomy, the banking sector seems not to be the biggest challenge: we have ample banking capacities in the EU – often referred to as being ‘overbanked’; challenge is more on the side of capital markets, where the lack of consolidation is a brake on the depth of our financial markets, hence the lack of competitiveness of our markets when it comes to financing innovation.
So, the discussion will not mainly focus on the Banking Union this time, but on how to build broad and deep capital markets. The speakers will be invited to express their views on what do the EU’s capital markets need in order to be more competitive and contribute more actively to financing the needs of the European economy and to Europe’s strategic autonomy.
Points of discussion
- What does European strategic autonomy for financial services mean – e.g. globally competitive European banking and financial players (banks, asset managers, insurers, market infrastructures…), financial infrastructures located in Europe…?
- What do European capital markets need in order to be more competitive and contribute more actively to financing the needs of the European economy and to Europe’s strategic autonomy?