If there is one thing that the two former Italian prime ministers, Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, responsible for preparing their respective reports to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU, have agreed on, it is the need to promote the capital markets union. This Monday, Spain will propose to give a boost to this project by creating small groups of countries which, As mini coalitions, take the lead and enable integration at different speeds.
As part of the meeting of eurozone economy and finance ministers which will take place this Monday in Luxembourg, Spain will present a proposal allowing a a group of three or four countries can move forward in this stock market integrationas published by Financial time. An idea that France defended in the middle of the year to overcome the blockages that have been holding back integration for a decade.
The idea is that three or four Member States take the lead and help unblock a project that has been blocked for years. This mini-coalition would be structured as a sort of competitiveness laboratory and would begin with the creation of this harmonized credit rating system for small and medium-sized businesses.
Spain maintains that an integration of capital markets different speeds This would reduce implicit costs and, for example, allow a Spanish company to raise capital in another participating Member State with competing interests.
But it’s not that the idea of Spain is entirely new. It has been on the table since, at the beginning of the year, when France recommended unblock the dormant project between a small group of countries. A proposal which was welcomed by the Minister of the Economy, Carlos Corpo, already during the informal Eurogroup held in Ghent, Belgium, in April. Support has been extended to other countries, including Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.
One of the main obstacles to overcome in the debate is the creation of a banking supervision body. With more than a decade of blockade surrounding the project, Luxembourg and Berlin reject the figure of a centralized control body this requires the transfer of skills which, they argue, must remain national.
Already last March, European leaders called for progress in the capital markets union in a statement tinged with a certain feeling of frustration on the part of the French executive. That same month, the The Eurogroup has developed an action plan which has startedprecisely due to the creation of this controversial control figure, in addition to the reduction of administrative obstacles or the harmonization of national insolvency systems.
The project appears to be a key element of European competitiveness at a time of vigorous competition with China and the United States. This is precisely the fragmentation of the Community market one of the main obstacles for the business sector and for the development of European industry, which takes the plunge across the pond in search of financing by finding a harmonized market, also in regulatory terms.
The project has become more urgent as insolvency schemes and savings products have become more necessary to meet the EU’s financial needs. Although national barriers and surveillance remain an obstacle to overcome, the same is true for property titles or bureaucratic burden.
