The European Union’s initiative to create a Capital Markets Union in Europe is currently stuck in a quagmire of political debate. However, according to Paul Richards, head of regulatory policy at ICMA: "the timetable for implementing the Commission’s Action Plan on Capital Markets Union makes it clear that progress can be expected in the EU on some issues in the short to medium term."
Originally intended as a means of encouraging economic growth in the EU, the CMU project took a step forward last September 2015 when the Commission released a 33-point action plan on how the project would be realised.
Paul Richards also reported that "the potential benefits in the long term mean that it is important to take the necessary steps as soon as practicable and that capital markets in the EU need to be competitive not only with other forms of financing but also competitive internationally." "But the most important issues – like insolvency reform, securities law and withholding tax – have previously proved politically intractable, and will take a long time fully to resolve. They will need to be resolved in order to complete a single capital market across the EU. The full impact of Capital Markets Union on EU growth and competitiveness is therefore likely to take a long time to work through."
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