Third and not least, national reflexes are still present, with countries reasoning vis-à-vis “their” banks and “their” financial centre. The result is that each European country, and the EU as a whole, are losing to the benefit of London and the United States – or to the benefit of foreign Bigtechs tomorrow. All in all we have to accept the idea that instead of a single European financial centre, we will have a polycentric network of financial centres – all the more since the digital era encourages it. And accept that there will be no winner-takes-all country, but several pan-European cross-border financial players. In this early 2022 nevertheless, there are at least four reasons to believe that we can breathe new life into Banking Union and CMU: There is growing awareness that European strategic autonomy matters and that financial sovereignty is part of it. This shift started with the Covid crisis but it is being underlined even more starkly now by geopolitics. The two “great transformations” ahead of us, digital and ecological, will require massive investments. This calls for common financing from not only public but also private sector. We should rebrand the CMU in a way that better reveals its goals: financing our two major transformations. I proposed some time ago to rebrand it “Financing Union for Investment and Innovation”, or “Financing Union for Sustainable Investment” – Christine Lagarde suggested a “Green Capital Markets Union”.
A few days ago, on 7 February, we celebrated the thirtieth birthday of the European Union and of the Maastricht Treaty. I was personally present during the signature of this Treaty, which promoted “the strengthening of economic and monetary union, ultimately including a single currency”. We have successfully established a monetary Eurosystem, however a real financial Eurosystem must now develop. Let me therefore share some proposals on the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union (CMU), which are the two cornerstones for such a financial Eurosystem. We are all aware the Banking Union is for 19 countries, and tomorrow 21, while the CMU is for 27. But allow me to mix them today with a common core – the euro area – and a common purpose – the right funding of our economies. I will quote two thriller books today. You may rightly think of The postman always rings twice: Andrea Enria and myself already conveyed this message quite plainly regarding the Banking Union during the last Eurofi session in September. You may also think that these projects are more or less stuck. It is true that there has been deadlock and I will list the bad reasons for this. But there are also good reasons why we can break this deadlock now and give the projects of Banking Union and CMU new momentum (I). I will then describe the new possible steps for the Banking Union (II) and the CMU (III). I.