To unlock the full potential of the European Union’s €13 trillion in private savings and strengthen its global competitiveness, the European Union must urgently address several fundamental barriers that have led to a fragmented capital market. A successful Savings and Investments Union depends on a single rulebook, single supervision, integrated post-trade systems and enhanced access to liquidity.
Euronext welcomes the European Commission's consultation on the integration of capital markets. We see this as a unique opportunity to reframe the debate, challenge outdated assumptions, and propose solutions that reflect the realities of today's market structure.
Despite being home to one of the world’s largest pools of household savings, the European Union continues to suffer from underinvestment in innovation, infrastructure, and strategic industries. Fragmented capital markets, regulatory divergence, and limited cross-border scale continue to act as barriers to growth. The result is a persistent gap between Europe’s economic potential and its actual performance.
Europe stands at a pivotal moment. The global economic landscape is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by technological disruption, geopolitical realignment, and the transition to a green and digital economy. In this context, the European Union must act decisively to secure its long-term competitiveness, strategic autonomy, and prosperity. Europe must now embrace bold, systemic reform — starting with the integration of its capital markets.
As Europe's leading European capital market infrastructure, Euronext is committed to being part of the solution in the rapid delivery of the Savings and Investments Union. With regulated exchanges in seven European countries and a unique federal model that combines local roots with European scale, Euronext is ideally positioned to support the Commission's goals.
At Euronext, we believe that a more integrated, transparent, and efficient European capital market is imperative:
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A transparent and accessible to all market, where price formation takes place on lit venues operated by European players, ensuring fairness, efficiency, and trust;
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A liquid market, where capital flows seamlessly across borders. Liquidity reduces the cost of capital for issuers, enhances returns for investors, and enables the efficient allocation of resources;
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A market with centralised European supervision for all cross-border financial markets infrastructures across trading, settlement and clearing.
The European capital market needs harmonised rules and reduced post-trade fragmentation. This requires an operationally integrated post-trade system, with the extension of Europe’s common settlement platform, Target2-Securities, across markets and the structural enhancement of the service, price and governance of the platform, allowing CSDs to compete with each other across Europe.
The European capital market needs to promote equity investment through direct participation in equity capital markets and indirect participation, through collective investment vehicles such as ETFs, providing the right long-term source of funding for businesses and innovation. This can be achieved through a combination of more appropriate tax incentives to grant European equity investments the most favourable tax treatment, through the development of long-term savings products in Member states where they don’t exist yet and through the creation of European savings and investment accounts for retail investors across Europe.
The European capital market needs easier access to capital for companies to tap into European and global investments, in a standardised way across European jurisdictions. The Listing Act and its harmonised transposition will be instrumental in improving the attractiveness of European capital markets but more needs to be done. It also means supporting SME listings, improving financial literacy, and ensuring that retail investors are not left behind in the digital transition. Simplification and burden reduction for listed companies is crucial, in order to boost the competitiveness of European capital markets and to ensure companies can remain listed over time.
The proposed Savings and Investments Union (SIU) and the renewed focus on capital markets integration are timely and essential. The European Union has the talent pool, capital, and institutional strength to lead in this new era — but only if it can overcome persistent fragmentation and inefficiencies in its capital markets.