02/04/2026
Key Recommendations
Securing Europe’s prosperity and global relevance will only be possible if our political leaders and legislators factor in to full extent the interplay between finance and growth.
Competitiveness and growth enhance and complement financial stability. They are interconnected priorities and this must be reflected urgently in the core objectives for financial sector regulation and supervision – not only in words but also in spirit and mindset across regulatory and supervisory institutions.
In this vein – and to unlock private sector financing for Europe’s industries, emerging technologies and infrastructures – Europe’s leaders now need to make strategic choices:
1. Adopt growth and competitiveness as core regulatory and supervisory objectives.
2. Provide a regulatory framework that enables cross-border capital mobility, simplifies rules, and foresees proportionate and risk-based requirements for banks and insurers alike.
3. Drive forward the Savings and Investment Union to mobilise savings and create deep, integrated and liquid capital markets. This involves removing cross-border barriers, revitalising securitisation, strengthening equity markets, offering attractive long-term investment products, and promoting personal and occupational pension schemes.
4. Ensure policy coherence between a) adopting an effective European labelling framework based on a coherent and unified definition of “European assets” across the Single Market and b) making financing available for those sectors and projects where success will be decisive for our future competitiveness and sovereignty.
5. Empower banks and insurers to lead in digitalisation by innovating, scaling and competing on market terms in a technology-driven global market. This also implies investment in the necessary digital and AI infrastructures.
6. Foster a competitive and cohesive European digital payment system based on a clear market-driven strategy.
7. Build a genuine European Cybersecurity Union as a sine qua non for security and competitiveness alike. In the face of hybrid warfare and cyberattacks, a European team effort is the only way to secure resilience and business continuity across all industries.
8. Establish on a permanent basis the principles of simplification and cost-efficient rule-making as integral parts of Europe’s policy and regulation culture.
If leaders in Brussels and national capitals deliver on these eight essential points, European banks and insurers can deploy – to a much greater extent than at present – their expertise, scale and local knowledge to finance growth, resilience, and innovation. And they will then be in a position to do so across Europe.
There is no other way of putting it: Europe’s future growth path depends on whether we – all together – succeed in generating positive investment dynamics, and whether this is done now.
2026 is the year in which the European Commission needs to bring on the way vital and concrete deliverables originating from Draghi, Letta and the Competitiveness Compass – for all industries, including ours. Europe benefits from its strong institutions, democracy is a competitive edge in a more unstable world. All eyes are on our political institutions, on the priorities they agree on and the concrete decisions they will take.