The announcement of the creation of a capital markets union has led to a flurry of possible harmonisation proposals that could lead to new Action Plans that could preoccupy legislators for years to come. As underlined by Karel Lannoo and his colleagues in this new ECMI Commentary, however, a first step in any new legislative plan should be to set a clear objective, based on a thorough analysis of the reasons for the persistent differences in markets and a prioritisation of initiatives aimed at reaching more integration. Amongst these, they single out an initiative for an EU-wide, long-term savings product as warranting priority attention.

Karel Lannoo is Chief Executive Officer of CEPS, Alan Pollack is CEO of PFA and Ole Stæhr is Executive Advisor at Nordea Wealth Management. This commentary is being published simultaneously in the opinion section of Euro Insight, the European platform of Market News International (https://euroinsight.mni-news.com/posts/capital-markets-union-should-offer-europeans-a-simple-long-term-savings-product-9215).