EU: Commission wants capital market plan in place before Brexit

According to Reuters, the European Union has stepped up efforts to create a more unified and cheaper capital market by next year when it faces the loss of Britain, the bloc’s biggest financial center.

The EU’s executive European Commission set out its latest plans for a “capital markets union” (CMU), a project initially focused on reducing heavy reliance of company funding on bank loans, but now made more pressing by Brexit.

“By the time Brexit happens, the preconditions for a true single market for capital need to be in place,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a news conference.

It is critical that EU states and the European Parliament get all measures “past the finishing line” ahead of elections for the EU assembly next year, Dombrovksis said.

According to The Financial Times, the new plans represent an renewed effort by policymakers to accelerate the development of a Capital Markets Union in Europe, a project where progress has so far been slow.

The Commission faces a race against time as it wants the new plans to be agreed by the European Parliament and European Council by 2019. Only three of the 12 proposals presented by the Commission to establish the building blocks of the CMU have been fully agreed so far.

Full Content: Financial Times & Reuters

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