Concluding the Commissions’ conference on financial integration, commissioner Bolkestein confirmed a continued strong commitment to the vision of an EU single deep and liquid capital market. Discussions centred merely on the methods to achieve this objective, the pace and the priority areas for action. Irish Finance Minister McCreevy stated that “there is little appetite among Member States and industry for a further major programme of EU legislation dealing with the financial services sector at this time”.
Several conference participants highlighted the crucial need to improve supervisory cooperation through the newly created (level 3 committees). Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa saw in these committees the potential to make progress towards codification of European supervisory practices in a largely common rule-book. This will give market participants the legal certainty that they need to operate cross-border and to unlock the benefits of a single market.
Retail financial integration was another topic of the conference. Mr Sklaroff (Association of British Insurers) argued against trying to force the pace of cross-border delivery through legislation: many retail financial products cannot be exported from one country to another for deep-seated reasons that cannot be tackled through Single Market rules.
Another issue referred to more efficient supervisory and tax structures for multi-jurisdictional entities. Rather than institutions providing centralised functions or services out of one Member State, these multi-jurisdictional entities have emerged as the de facto driver of financial integration. The EU framework must offer solutions to the challenges that they face in trying to organise business functions across legal boundaries in the EU.
Conference results
Bolkestein speech
© European Commission
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