Putting the Capital Markets Union on sustainable foundations

By the end of September 2015, the European Commission launched its Action Plan for a European Capital Markets Union (CMU). By European standards, this ‘most significant EU proposal for the last 10 years’ has proceeded at rapid pace under the leadership of the British Commissioner Lord Hill.

For those attuned to the complexities of European politics, the CMU is a peace offering from Brussels (Berlin/Frankfurt) designed to showcase the strategic benefits that UK (and its City) enjoys from EU membership. Its (referendum) politics aside, the CMU’s ambitions are great: SME financing and job creation, growth via capital markets.

Yet, we argue, if the CMU is to make a substantial and lasting contribution to investment and job creation in Europe, it must be accompanied by reforms that address systemic risk in securities-based financial systems and enhance pan-European supervision of securitization and repo markets.

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