According to a working document of the EU Council’s ‘Financial Services Committee’ about the future of the Capital Markets Union (CMU), published on Monday 4 November on the sidelines of a Eurogroup meeting (see EUROPE 13517/6), most EU countries have a national financial education strategy for their citizens.
“All Member States have taken measures to improve financial literacy. The vast majority have, for instance, included the topic in their school curricula and developed measures specifically targeted to entrepreneurs and SMEs”, noted the committee’s experts, pointing out that the strategies put in place were often supported by aid from the OECD or EU funding through the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) (see EUROPE 13379/14).
Furthermore, while the European Commission is working on developing a ‘Savings and Investments Union’ (see EUROPE 13518/9), many Member States are encouraging increased savings for retirement, notably through automatic enrolment in pension schemes or tax reductions for voluntary contributions.
However, EU countries have differing perceptions about other concrete paths to take to complete the CMU, based on the guidelines recommended by the Eurogroup last March (see EUROPE 13368/3).
Securitisation. The Eurogroup invited the European Commission to “comprehensively assess all the supply and demand factors holding back the development of the securitisation market in the EU”. The EU countries believe that it is essential to examine any obstacles in the regulatory framework to facilitate this market’s growth. However, they insist that any changes to the EU framework must in no way compromise financial stability.
Retail investment. The Eurogroup suggests examining “the potential of developing a framework for a common cross-border market-based investment/savings product”. This framework could be encouraged via a pan-EU label or a cross-border investment and savings account.
However, these options are only supported by a minority of Member States, the majority being sceptical because of possible interference with national tax systems and the risk of confusion for individual investors.
Alternatives are proposed, including the exchange of best practices, simplified rules for distributing specific products, ESMA guidelines as a model for an EU label, or an “intergovernmental approach” between willing Member States.
Market consolidation. Although Member States seem open to exploring solutions to further integrate market infrastructures, some countries are concerned about potential challenges for local financial markets and complexities linked to “national specificities”.
In terms of supervision, for example, several countries are in favour of “regulatory convergence”, while others are calling for more centralised supervision.
See the working document: https://aeur.eu/f/e7a (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)