Capital Markets Brief
The Capital Markets Union and Savings and Investments Union: Unlocking Trillions for EU Competitiveness
Published May 4, 2026
Deeper capital markets and more efficient savings allocation are central to financing Europe's innovation, defence, and industrial competitiveness.
Europe has enormous savings, but too much of that capital is trapped in low-productivity channels or fragmented across national systems. A genuine capital markets union would make it easier to direct long-term funding toward innovation, infrastructure, and scale-up financing.
Linking that agenda to a broader savings and investments union would give households and institutions clearer pathways to invest in Europe's future. The payoff is not only higher growth, but stronger resilience in sectors where strategic autonomy depends on deep pools of capital.
For competitiveness, this is now a first-order issue rather than a technical reform. Without larger and more integrated financial markets, Europe will struggle to fund the ambitions it already says it has in technology, defence, energy, and industrial renewal.