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Spain is proposing a faster path to closer EU financial integration among like-minded nations in an effort to end a decade-long stalemate over harmonising the bloc’s capital and credit markets.
Madrid will make a formal proposal on Monday for a new mechanism to allow a vanguard of three or more countries to proceed on joint initiatives even when other EU members are wary — starting with the creation of a pan-European credit rating system. For more than a decade, the EU has sought to tear down national barriers in capital markets to help European companies raise funds, but the efforts to forge a “capital markets union” have been scuppered by resistance from several capitals.
Spain’s move comes after policy recommendations from former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, who warned that the bloc risked economic decline if it could not turn its private savings into productive investments. Carlos Cuerpo, the Spanish economy minister who will present the country’s proposal to fellow EU ministers in Luxembourg, told the Financial Times that implementing the Italian recommendations was “a huge job ahead for all of us”.
Setting out Spain’s proposal for a “competitiveness lab”, where three or more EU countries could test ideas for co-operation, he said it would help avoid the “potential danger of frustration” with the EU’s slow decision making. “We can’t wait that length of time,” he said, noting that on average the bloc’s legislation takes 19 months to pass....
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