Investments and reforms for competitiveness and a Capital Markets Union

Key points

The EESC:

• underlines that the funding gap remains the Achilles heel of the EU’s high ambition to make the EU and the single market fit for the future;
• advocates for: i) the establishment of an EU investment fund for competitiveness and resilience, as part of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF); ii) increasing co-financed programmes, such as structural funds, under the EU’s upcoming MFF, enabling more national co-financing while respecting the new fiscal rules; and iii) a targeted revision of Regulation 2024/1263, to privilege growth-enhancing public investments that contribute to EU's competitiveness and resilience;
• recommends to facilitate investment in strategic sectors, industrial transformation and 'unbankable' projects (i.e by expanding the InvestEU programme). Leveraging the EU budget to mobilise private investment must be accompanied by transparent and enforceable performance, sustainability criteria, and impact assessments. The EIB should expand its direct investment in certain cleantech and technology companies;
• points out the strategic importance of completing the Capital Markets Union (CMU), while also ensuring that small-scale savers are protected, financial market stability is not reduced and the objectives of pension savings are respected. The creation of an SIU, combining the CMU and the Banking Union, should address the structural problems of the EU’s financial sector and build appropriate and pragmatic solutions;
• recommends to promote supervisory convergence and strengthening the role of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs). A phased approach should be established for ESMA to directly supervise market infrastructure operators with significant cross-border activities;
• considers that the expansion and strengthening of collectively agreed occupational pension schemes (Pillar 2), with a minimum contribution by the employer, supervised by a public entity implementing binding and sustainable investment guidelines, could be a way forward, provided this is done in a way that complements public pension systems and without undermining them.
• believes that improving the functioning of the securitisation market could broaden investment opportunities for investors and help to advance the CMU. Efforts to stimulate securitisation in the EU should concentrate on producing demonstrable benefits in terms of additional funding for the real economy. Securitisation should play a complementary role to other debt capital instruments, such as covered bonds.