On July 8 the European Parliament voted in favour of the proposal to revise the Shareholders Rights Directive, published in April 2014 by the European Commission. Early May, the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee (JURI Committee) had already backed amended rules by a narrow vote of 13 to 11. However, considerable differences among European Parliament’s political groups resulted in the rapporteur, MEP
BETTER FINANCE believes that the CMU is about attracting household savings to put them to work for the long term financing of the European economy. Therefore, we invited several high-level speakers to share their views and discuss the concept of this initiative at our international conference on the 6th of May. In his speech, Commissioner
At the informal Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) meeting held on 23-25 April in Riga, Latvia, the European finance ministers discussed the plan for a capital markets union (CMU) for the first time. The ministers gave a strong support to the European Commission’s proposal that would boost economic growth by giving companies wider access
On 18 March 2015, the European Commission has outlined its ‘Tax Transparency Package’. The package includes a legislative proposal introducing the automatic exchange of information between Member States on their tax rulings and a communication outlining a number of other initiatives to advance the tax transparency agenda in the EU in order to fight tax evasion
BETTER FINANCE shares its first thoughts on the long-waited Green Paper on Building a Capital Markets Union (CMU), published by the European Commission last week. We welcome the initiative and fully agree that “capital markets need to play a larger role in channeling financing to the economy” but our concern lies with the lack of attention
Two finance ministers, France’s Michel Sapin and Austria’s Hans-Jörg Schelling, issued a joint plea to nine other finance ministers who had – back in 2013 – agreed to proceed with the tax. With this letter they “hope to breathe new life into talks on the FTT”. The financial transaction tax has been described as a
Jonathan Hill, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union proposes to dispose of three major pieces of financial legislation in the institutional pipeline. Background: Shortly after the new composition of the Commission had been confirmed, Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s Vice-President responsible for “Better Regulation”, asked all Commissioners to inform him about
The European Central Bank organized a second comprehensive stress test for over 120 most important banks in the EU. The test, announced in January 2014, will be delivering results this Sunday, October 26 (see a detailed timeline). The European Banking Authority (EBA) compares the stress test to a tactics employed in the construction sector: “when
Passive funds – also known as index funds – are passively managed according to a pre-defined strategy, which means that their portfolios mirror the components of a market index. Research carried out by Charles Stanley Pan Asset now shows that these funds have done better than active funds by 4.73% on average over 5 years
According to the latest Nomura Global Markets Research report, investment consultants do not add value in terms of fund selection. Criticism arose amid concerns over their cost and their worth to the industry, with the report concluding that investment consultants can find themselves pushed out of some markets. “The tortoise and the hare: passive is the new