In a joint statement published on Wednesday 18 July, the finance ministers of eight member states (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and the Netherlands) called for work to be stepped up to make the Capital Markets Union (CMU) a reality by 2019.
“Taking account of the European Union political and institutional cycle, time is not on our side and so we must set an ambitious target and prioritise. This means that we should focus our resources on those outstanding parts of the CMU Action Plan with the largest impact, which enjoy broad support among member states and can be completed quickly”, the statement reads.
In 2019, as well as the European elections, the EU will see the United Kingdom leave - an event that these countries argue should be used as a “catalyst to redouble our efforts in further developing and integrating EU capital markets”.
The statement was subsequently welcomed by the European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, who welcomed this desire to move forward via Twitter.
At their meeting in Sofia in April, the European finance ministers carried out an initial hierarchisation exercise (see EUROPE 12011), agreeing on the reinforcement of financial supervision, the simplification of the prudential rules and the creation of new pan-European products.
The group of countries is focusing on the key initiatives set out in the action plans on sustainable finance (see EUROPE 12026) and financial technology (see EUROPE 11977). They moreover hope to conclude negotiations on proposals concerning the new prudential framework for investment companies (see EUROPE 11930) and the covered bonds framework (see EUROPE 11979).
Not waiting for the ESAs to be revised before making progress on CMU
On the reform of the three European financial supervisory authorities (ESA) - ESMA, EBA and EIOPA, which supervise the financial markets and the banking and insurance sectors respectively (see EUROPE 11864) - on the other hand, the message is quite different.
In general, several signatory countries of the statement are not exactly sold on the reform, as shown by the animated discussions of the Ecofin Council of November 2017 (see EUROPE 11899).
In their statement, the ministers stressed that this provision is an important opportunity to improve the current framework, but on the basis of existing tools - rather than progressing by means of an in-depth overhaul of the system - and maintaining the role of the national authorities.
“We remain convinced that amendments can be agreed by the Council with the timeline of this Commission and Parliament, but progress on CMU should not depend on the ESA review”, they conclude.
Over in Parliament, concerns have certainly arisen over the Council's highly conservative position, with certain MEPs expressing doubts at the possibility of concluding this dossier before the end of the current mandate (see EUROPE 12061).
The statement is available at: https://bit.ly/2L8aw8M. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)