On Thursday 17 October, BETTER FINANCE welcomed the recommendations made on 9 October last (see EUROPE 12345/12) by the High-Level Expert Group on the “Next Capital Markets Union” launched jointly by France, Germany and the Netherlands (see EUROPE 12257/5).
The organisation, which spoke to the working group in July and therefore contributed to the debate, is pleased to see several of its policy recommendations included in the final report.
The report also aligns with several of its key priorities for 2019-2024, including the need for better, cheaper and simpler investment products, simplified access to the public markets for SMEs and Mid-Caps, a reassessment of the regulatory and supervisory balance, and an emphasis on sustainable finance, it argues.
For BETTER FINANCE, financial stability concerns have too often prevailed in the EU, to the detriment of consumer protection.
“It is with a sense of relief then that BETTER FINANCE notes that the report [...] addresses these concerns head-on, stating that European capital markets have now sufficiently recuperated and stabilised for CMU efforts to now pass on to the next stage and focus on EU citizens and SMEs”, the organisation said in a statement. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)