home
news

Frank Bold's inputs on the EU Capital Markets Union public consultation

share this article

In his political guidelines for the new EU Commission, President Juncker pledged to create a European Capital Markets Union (CMU) to increase non-bank financing of the European economy and further integrate capital markets. In this context, the EU Commission launched a public consultation in February 2015.

Frank Bold submitted a response to the consultation and prepared an accompanying paper outlining the recommendations sent to the EU Commission on the guiding principles of a proper functioning CMU.

Frank Bold has stated that financing through capital markets is not appropriate for most private companies, especially SMEs, which will continue to be primarily financed through relationship-based bank lending. Private companies are often rightly concerned about listing due to the risk of pressure from capital markets. Therefore, Frank Bold recommends clarifications to the role of investors in corporate governance and the protection of corporate purpose.

More broadly, future policy should integrate sustainability and corporate responsibility into its central priorities. We highlight necessary changes to insolvency, company and tax laws for the development of a strong, stable and equitable pan-European financial market.

Our response includes the following recommendations:

  • Clarify the role of investors in corporate governance
  • Address corporate purpose
  • Encourage firms to integrate ESG-performance criteria into remuneration policies
  • Harmonise conflict of law rules
  • Introduce safeguards to proposed single member companies (SUPs)

The next phase will be this summer when the EU's financial services commissioner, Jonathan Hill, will adopt an Action Plan establishing the roadmap to put in place the building blocks for CMU by 2019.

If you are interested to know more about Frank Bold's recommendations to promote sustainable financing of European companies you can read the accompanying paper to the CMU public consultation Written by Paige Morrow, head of Frank Bold Brussels Operations and responsible for the Purpose of the Corporation Project.

Building a Capital Markets Union
    (
99 kB
)

You may also like these news

Frank Bold co-hosted a meeting about changing the culture of regulating industrial activities

In December Frank Bold team co-organised a meeting of NGOs and representatives of the Member States of the European Union. The all-day meeting in Brussels was prepared in cooperation with our colleagues from European Environmental Bureau and Client Earth.

Join our support for the petition to protect drinking water access at the Czech/Polish/German border

Thirty thousand people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region face a loss of access to drinking water due to the planned expansion of the Turów coal mine. This mine is planned to newly stretch outwards to just 150 meters from the Czech border and downwards to a depth below the bottom of the Baltic. The resulting drainage of Czech underground water is not just a threat to citizens; the drying out of the area would destroy entire local ecosystems and cause significant agricultural damage. A further increase to dust and noise levels is a threat as well. Furthermore, the end date for mining is to be delayed from 2020 out to 2044.

Politico reports about the threat of the Turów mine expansion

The threatened loss of drinking water for tens of thousands of people in the Czech Republic’s Liberec region has earned the notice of Politico, a Brussels-based news site. Politico reported on the plans for the expansion of the Turów brown coal mine in Poland, near the Czech/German/Polish border.