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 to capital across the 28-nation bloc. Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission’s vice president for Euro & social dialogue, said: “Europe's financial services market is fragmented, making companies vulnerable to trouble in national banking systems where many banks have been deleveraging to meet stricter capital adequacy ratios since the sovereign debt crisis. Stronger capital markets would complement banks as the source of financing. That, in turn, would make the financial system more stable. The task is to find ways of linking businesses and savers to finance growth.”
In his opinion, there is a need to identify and then remove barriers that stand between investors' money and investment opportunities, but it requires the harmonization of various securities laws across Europe as well as insolvency and bankruptcy laws and tax and accounting standards.
On their June 2015 ECOFIN meeting , the same forum will identify the priorities of the list containing the possible ways of building the CMU published by Jonathan Hill, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union.
Janis Reirs, Latvian finance minister from the current Presidency of the EU stated that "CMU has a potential to give palpable benefits to growth, employment and the resistance of the financial system against shocks”.
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Capital Markets Union is a core issue for BETTER FINANCE as well, hence our federation organises an international conference on “A Capital Markets Union for Growth, Jobs and Citizens" on 6 May 2015. Registration period is now closed.