07 December 2022

Remarks Commissioner McGuinness at the press conference on new proposals to boost the EU's Capital Markets Union

I'm going to start at when things go wrong – so insolvency, because Valdis has set out why we're doing this and indeed some of the elements of this package.

And I think a very striking figure is that across our Member States, the procedure can take 7 months in some Member States, or up to 7 years in others.

So clearly there is a need to harmonise how insolvency happens and indeed the duration.

So all of the proposals we've made aim at allowing investors recover value, ensuring that value is not lost from the company in the lead up to an insolvency.

But equally importantly we're recognising that for microenterprises that do not succeed, that they have difficulty accessing insolvency because of costs.

And that can stop them getting back into business because they can't discharge their debt, and we're addressing that in this proposal.

So we're simplifying procedures for microenterprises by waiving the obligation to appoint an insolvency practitioner.

So all of the work on insolvency, we've worked with our colleague Commissioner Reynders hand in hand on this proposal, it will involve both Justice Ministries and Finance Ministries.

If I move them to listing then.

Clearly when it comes to listing, for example, we get a lot of innovators starting companies in Europe, they then move to the US when it comes to getting access to finance.

And so this proposal to facilitate more listings on stock exchanges will allow for those innovators:

Number one, access capital;

Number two, if they want, if you like, to control the company, in other words not to lose their vision for the company, we are working and have a proposal around share voting rights which will assist that process.

And essentially what we've done here is we've gone through the procedure of the prospectus and made it more usable and user friendly, for those who want to get listed.

With the view to the CMU is all about making sure we don't have to rely too much on bank finance which we do today, that we move towards capital markets.

On the third point, around the architecture of the financial system.

Valdis has well outlined what we're doing here: we set out some time ago what we were doing in relation to equivalence for UK CCPs.

At that stage we announced that we would be making some proposals around, how do we address systemic issues, risks, vulnerabilities, and how do we make the European system more resilient.

So this is our proposal on clearing.

It's very measured: it addresses the problems identified.

And we're taking action to make sure that over time we will build up in the European Union a stronger architecture around CCPs.

We do have CCPs in the European Union – we estimate at the moment that participants, all of our businesses, would have 60% if I get the figure correctly – 60% of our entrepreneurs have – I'm looking towards Florian – have open accounts with CCPs – I'm getting the nod, so I got that right. The figure is 60%.

So we already have a lot of our work and groundwork in place, and we're building on it with this proposal on clearing.

But equally important are the listing elements and indeed the insolvency piece.

Commission

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