The German Finance Minister, Lars Klingbeil, and the French Finance Minister, Éric Lombard, have urged the European Commission to continue its drive for regulatory simplification by identifying “other potential areas for simplification beyond reporting, particularly in the regulation of financial markets”, in a joint statement published on Thursday 17 July, the day after a bilateral meeting in Ludwigsfelde.
With regard to the banking sector, the Franco-German tandem welcomes the European Commission’s announcement to “conduct a competitiveness analysis” and encourages it to “propose ambitious measures to simplify the legal framework applicable to all banks, insisting on proportionality and a level playing field at global level”.
Fully committed to building a genuine Savings and Investment Union, the ministers support the legislative proposal revising the regulatory framework for securitisation (see EUROPE 13661/26) and say they are “determined” to move the legislative process forward. They recognise the need to “strengthen the conditions enabling European supervisory authorities to exercise effective control over the most systemic cross-border capital market participants”. And to recall their country’s participation in the ‘Finance Europe’ label project aimed at mobilising European savings (see EUROPE 13654/20).
Mr Lombard and Mr Klingbeil also announced the creation of a joint working group led by Germany’s Jörg Kukies and France’s Christian Noyer, which will be tasked with identifying the obstacles limiting the ability of European start-ups and scale-ups to access the financing they need to develop.
See the Franco-German declaration (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/hxg (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)