Welcome to Better Europe’s weekly update on EU Affairs.
A MASTER PLAN FOR EU FINANCIAL INTEGRATION
This week, the Commission launched a horizontal review of financial market infrastructure legislation, opening up a dozen of legislative files in a renewed attempt to build more integrated EU financial markets. Until last year, Brussels insiders would refer to such a package as an “Omnibus”, a concept that since this year refers to legislative proposals that deregulate while pretending to merely simplify things… so to avoid linguistic confusion, the Commission puts forward a “Master Regulation” and a “Master Directive” instead. Together, the two aim to overhaul the way that EU financial services are regulated and marketed throughout the EU, although “overhaul” is perhaps overstated. The most ambitious proposals such as mainstreaming integrated supervision, as suggested in the Letta report (which is sort of a Draghi report, but focused on finance) are not on the table under pressure from Member States. As other initiatives such as the Retail Investment Strategy show, it is quite likely that some nice Member State and Parliament amendments will further reduce ambition. In other words, the Master proposals at best will help to make baby steps in a market which already seventy years ago was diagnosed to be lacking integration.
BEYOND GROWTH – THE RETURN
Beyond Growth is back in the Parliament next week. Two years after the big 2023 conference, which made headlines with its packed rooms and three-day programme – and which many described as former MEP Philippe Lamberts’ farewell manifesto – the conversation on moving past GDP is back… except that the mood music has changed. Hosted by Green MEPs Bas Eickhout and Marie Toussaint this time, the event will focus on a new roadmap for eradicating poverty “beyond growth”, led by UN special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter. The political context is less celebratory and more of an uphill battle than last time: with the EPP and the far right now forming comfortable majorities on key files, and “competitiveness” eclipsing “wellbeing” as the buzzword in Brussels, the beyond growth agenda returns to a more hostile policy environment. Whether this edition will spark another movement or simply become nostalgia for the post-growth faithful remains to be seen. Still, one thing is clear: it is refreshing to see this kind of initiative continue to mobilise, especially when the scale of the challenges speaks for itself.
SIMPLIFICATION ALREADY SAVED US 8 BILLION EUROS
Simplification is a great success. At least, if we have to believe Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU Commissioner dedicated to the topic speaking in Parliament this week. The Commission aims to save EU taxpayers 37 bilion euros by the end of 2027, and has already managed to cut 8.6 billion euros thanks to its six Omnibus packages. So, it looks like omnibus is indeed the new new, the standard method of decision-making by the European Commission. Despite the accusation of the EU Ombudswoman that the Commission’s omnibuses mount to “maladministration”, the executive body is keen to push its agenda forward: simplification will be approached in a more holistic way, ensuring quality and consistency, and addressing societal costs in better regulation. In an attempt to calm the Parliament, Dombrovskis this week stressed that he had “been outlining from the very beginning that [the Commission’s] aim is to simplify, not to deregulate. So, we are not moving away from our high social or environmental standards”. Any questions?