By Sergio Goncalves and Inti Landauro
LISBON (Reuters) – European Union’s financial industry faces burdens equivalent to a 110% tariff because of the fragmentation of the bloc’s markets for financial services, EU Commissioner for Financial Services Maria Luis Albuquerque said on Tuesday.
Discussions about replacing the current patchwork of separately regulated markets with a Capital Markets Union have been dragging on for a decade without much progress. In the past months, however, EU leaders have pledged to intensify efforts to integrate the bloc’s financial markets as one of ways of boosting Europe’s competitiveness.
Addressing a diplomatic event in Lisbon, Albuquerque said the EU needed to complete its banking union and deepen the capital market integration.
Designed after the financial crisis, the banking union aims to centralise supervision of big lenders at the European Central Bank, but divisions remain over some aspects, such as a joint deposit protection scheme.
A Capital Markets Union would unify national rules on bankruptcies, prospectuses, listing requirements and taxation to make it easier to raise funds in Europe, making it a viable alternative to deep U.S. capital markets.
Albuquerque said there should be fewer cases where Europe has the resources and good ideas, but “the investments are made in the United States.”
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Inti Landauro, Editing by Louise Heavens, David Latona and Tomasz Janowski)
