The European Commissioner for Financial Services, Mairead McGuinness, said, on Wednesday 7 June, at the annual joint conference on European financial integration, that the Capital Markets Union (CMU) (see EUROPE 13183/3) was facing an implementation problem.
“We all agree with the objectives: competitiveness, open strategic autonomy, financial stability and the green and digital transitions. But on specific issues, conflicting national interests come into play. Too often, the various dossiers are considered in isolation, rather than as a set of essential measures to unblock the Capital Markets Union”, she declared.
“Countries and representatives of the financial sector are defending their own sector and the status quo. I understand that (...) If nothing is done on ‘national’ issues, the EU will fall short of what it could be in terms of capital markets”, she added.
The European Commissioner also insisted that Member States should work as well on initiatives to strengthen their national capital markets, in particular with a view to making citizens “more confident when engaging with the financial system”.
In addition, the European Commissioner said that the powers of the European market supervisory authorities should be strengthened. “We should not hesitate to give them the right to directly supervise a greater number of financial market players in the EU”, she stressed, announcing that the progress made in this area would be analysed “in the years to come”.
The Commission will “shortly” be adopting two new legislative proposals on the Capital Markets Union, including one on a framework for open finance (to be adopted by the Commission on 28 June).
These two legislative proposals will be added to the eight dossiers still being worked on or negotiated, such as the ‘MiFIR’ regulation (see EUROPE 13132/18), governing the markets in financial instruments, the European Single Access Point (ESAP), which should facilitate access to information on companies and financial products in the EU (see EUROPE 13111/18), and corporate insolvency (see EUROPE 13079/2).
“Investors are unlikely to invest in another Member State if they do not know how they will be treated in the event of insolvency. Once again, we urge the co-legislators to make rapid progress on this issue, which will also require coordination between the finance and justice ministers of our Member States”, summarised Ms McGuinness.
The objective set by the European Commissioner for Financial Services, the Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Irene Tinagli, and the Swedish, Spanish and Belgian Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance (current and future EU Council Presidencies) will be to finalise legislative work on the CMU before the next European Parliament elections in early June 2024 (see EUROPE 13172/8). (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)