EUs Economic summit, overshadowed by wars

Introduction: At the EU summit , the latest developments in the crisis regions of the world were discussed. In Brussels, the main focus was on economic policy and Europe’s competitiveness. For three decades, the European internal market has guaranteed growing prosperity in the EU member states. It is considered one of the greatest achievements of the European Union.

Article: Making the internal market crisis-proof and forward-stable – through a new agreement on competitiveness is the goal. To this end, the member states are to remove obstacles and better implement existing regulations. This should help to provide easy services and to allow capital to work across EU borders.

In recent years, however, member states have not always been prepared to overcome legal and bureaucratic hurdles for service providers and employees from partner countries. Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has worked for months on a report on this, which he is now presenting to the Heads of State and Government.

Progress on the Capital Markets Union?

Sustainable rebuilding Europe’s economy costs hundreds of billions of euros per year. In addition, EU governments want to massively upgrade in the face of the threat posed by Russia. But the member states cannot manage the necessary investments alone.

In order to raise additional private funds, they want to harmonize the capital market, i.e. harmonize national regulations. This applies to stock exchange and insolvency law as well as corporate and dividend taxation. Experts have been working on this for years without tangible progress. This is precisely what the EU summit demanded at the end of March, and the 27 member states are debating this time.

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz calls the Capital Markets Union the “decisive resource for future growth”. It proposes reforms of insolvency law and corporate taxation. Scholz complains that money from Europe flows into American capital collecting agencies before it is reinvested from there in European start-ups.