On 18 February the European Commission (Commission) launched its flagship Capital Markets Union (CMU) project with three consultation papers. The first is an overall policy green paper examining practical barriers and obstacles to creating a CMU. The paper looks at questions including availability and standardisation of SME credit information, the development of private placement markets, promoting greater liquidity in corporate bond markets, reducing the costs to fund managers of setting up and marketing funds across the EU, increasing retail investment, facilitating the access of EU firms to investors and capital markets in third countries, targeted changes to securities ownership rules, improving the legal enforceability of collateral and close-out netting arrangements cross-border and harmonisation of insolvency laws. The other consultations launched covered the revision of the Prospectus Directive and a consultation on Securitisation. All three consultations closed on 13 May.
The aim of the CMU project is to remove barriers that stand between investors and investment opportunities and to make the system for channelling those funds more efficient. It is the intention of the Commission to draw up a concrete action plan on future deliverables by Summer 2015 and to have a fully functioning CMU in place by 2019.
The joint ISDA/FIA Europe responded to the green paper, together with a joint ISDA/FIA Europe position paper on “lowering the barriers to capital Deployment in Europe” – a vision for derivatives markets in the Capital Markets Union.
