The future of EU capital markets

Analysis of pools of long-term capital in the EU with a focus on pensions.

More than three years after the UK signed the EU withdrawal agreement, the EU and UK have finally agreed a deal on Northern Ireland. The ‘Windsor Framework’ potentially removes a significant barrier to future cooperation and could herald a political and diplomatic reset. This virtual workshop is an opportunity to discuss what impact this may […]

This report presents a new vision for EU capital markets and identifies the potential for game-changing growth to support investment, jobs, and sustainable growth.  We estimate that an additional 4,800 companies in the EU27 could raise an extra €535bn per year in the capital markets and that an additional €14tn in long-term capital could be put to work in the EU economy to help support a recovery.

This report analyses EU capital markets from the perspective of strategic autonomy. It shows that in most areas of activity the EU falls short and there is a lot of work to be done. Building bigger, better and more integrated capital markets needs to be an urgent strategic priority to develop sufficient domestic capacity to finance the EU economy and support a post-Covid recovery, reduce the EU’s reliance on third countries, and increase its international attractiveness and global influence.

At a time when the European economy needs bigger and better equity markets more than ever to help support a post-Covid recovery, this short paper analyses of one of the biggest barriers to growth: the complex patchwork of European stock markets, stock exchanges and post-trade infrastructure.

This report shows that post-Brexit capital markets in the EU will be significantly smaller and less developed relative to GDP than they are today – and that the UK’s current dominance of EU capital markets activity will be replaced by the dominance of France and Germany.  The report also raises some difficult questions over the future relationship between the EU and UK in key sectors.

This report analyses the development of EU capital markets since the conception of the capital markets union initiative and shows that while steady progress has been made at an overall EU level, growth has been patchy and there is still a lot of work to be done in individual member states.

This report analyses how banks and capital markets have responded to the Covid-19 crisis and identifies the potential for game-changing growth in EU capital markets to support investment, jobs, and growth.  We estimate that an additional 4,000 companies could raise an extra €470bn per year in the capital markets, and that an additional €11 trillion in long-term capital could be put to work to support a recovery.

This report analyses the progress made by the capital markets union project so far, underlines why Europe needs more capital markets – and why it needs more integrated capital markets. It outlines a more ambitious and more focused roadmap for CMU over the next few decades that combines ‘top down’ initiatives at an EU level and ‘bottom up’ initiatives at a national level to build bigger and better capital markets.

This report outlines an ambitious vision of game-changing growth in European capital markets. It underlines the wide range in the size and depth of markets across the EU and highlights the potential benefits of deeper capital markets to the European economy in concrete and practical terms.