At an event hosted by Better Finance on Tuesday 27 September, Vice-President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis called upon the European Parliament and the member states to do their bit regarding the proposals already on the table to create a Capital Markets Union (CMU).
There are currently three proposals on the table: - a double proposal to revitalise the markets for securitised products in Europe; - a proposal to relax the rules on the prospectuses that businesses wishing to raise capital on the markets must publish to provide potential investors with information; - a proposal to give a shot in the arm to the venture capital market.
An initial inter-institutional negotiation session will be held next week in Strasbourg on the prospectuses. As regards the securitisation proposal, on the other hand, the European Parliament has still not decided upon its negotiating position, even though a whole year has passed since the Commission presented its proposal. The Commission agreed in less than three months.
Over at Parliament, discussions are struggling over the question of risk retention. The EPP, ECR and ALDE Groups are calling for this to stand at 5%, as in the Commission's initial proposal. The S&D, of which Dutch rapporteur Paul Tang is a member, put this at 20%. The Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL Groups are calling for 25%.
In general, no fewer than 483 amendments have been tabled to the draft Tang report. The forthcoming meetings between the shadow reporters at the Parliament will be held on 12 and 25 October.
The Commission wants to see its three proposals adopted this year, Dombrovskis explained. "It's important we cement these first actions to support growth and move on to new priorities", he said. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)