As the European elections approach, the theme of a risk of economic decline in the Old Continent, in relation to China or the United States, is gradually gaining ground in the minds of pro-Europeans, in the hope of counter the drift denounced over and over again by Eurosceptic parties.
Underlying this observation, a consensus is emerging to point out the weakness of the European financial sector in view of the immensity of the projects to be financed: climate and digital transitions or military rearmament.
According to the European Commission, Europe needs 620 billion euros per year in investments in the climate transition and 125 billion euros for digital technology.
On the other hand, 370 billion euros of excess savings in 2023 are lying dormant in the accounts, savings accounts and other life insurance of European households.
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire would like to strike people's minds with a strong symbol: the creation of a pan-European savings product, by the end of the year.
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A file bogged down for years
He made the trip to Berlin on Monday and Tuesday to, despite the numerous bilateral differences, take the initiative with his liberal counterpart Christian Lindner.
After the agreement reached
at the last minute
at the end of 2023 on the budgetary rules of the euro zone, the current priority is to move forward on the issue of capital markets union, which has been bogged down for years.
The two men had already signed a joint column in the
Financial Times
on this subject in September 2023.
If the single market, born from the will of Jacques Delors, has materialized for the free movement of goods and people, it is still far from being a reality for financial flows.
Unlike the United States, the European market remains very fragmented into as many countries.
This prevents it from competing with them, but also from effectively mobilizing the hidden treasure of European savings in the service of the continent's growth.
As a result, when young companies like the unicorn Mistral AI seek to raise several tens or hundreds of millions of euros, it is American funds that respond.
And, ironically, it is American retirees who will receive, via their pension funds, the future dividends from these nuggets.
Move forward without waiting for unanimity
Bruno Le Maire brought the issue out at the beginning of the year, entrusted a mission to the former governor of the Bank of France, Christian Noyer, and decided to mobilize motivated European allies to move forward with him, without waiting for hypothetical unanimity.
Because there are many reluctances: disparate bankruptcy rights, sovereignty in terms of supervision... In the Eurogroup, last week, the ministers asked the Commission to move forward on the file.
European leaders should in turn make a decision at their summit in Brussels on Friday.
The impetus is there, but the projects will have to wait until after the European elections, the establishment of a new Brussels executive.
Among the projects, it will be necessary to work on the creation of truly European venture capital funds, create a unified register of companies listed on the stock exchange in order to facilitate transactions 24 hours a day throughout the continent, promote securitization to boost emissions in the green finance and unify the supervision of European markets, perhaps under the leadership of the European Securities and Markets Authority.
Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta is also due to make proposals on this subject, in a report on the modernization of the single market expected in April.
His successor and former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is working on the challenges to Europe's competitiveness, of which financing is one of the elements.