Recently, a few banks have experienced problems of a less widespread nature than those of the 1970s and 1980s. Last month, for example, a large foreign bank discovered trading losses in its U.S. subsidiary bank that had apparently increased substantially and gone undetected for some time.
The capital markets union is a complex undertaking that touches upon many different areas. Consequently, the European Commission’s green paper on this subject 6 includes a wide variety of suggestions and steps to be taken. With regard to the objective of increasing the share of capital markets, we should focus on equity markets. Against this backdrop, let me emphasise the issue of taxes.