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By Huw Jones
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - The European Union needs
centralised supervision of stocks and bonds if it wants a
capital market that is on a par with those in the United States
and Britain, the boss of Barclays Bank in Europe said on Friday.
The European Commission is due in September to set out
measures to accelerate the creation of a capital markets union
or CMU, made more urgent by Britain's departure from the bloc
and the need to recapitalise companies after the COVID-19 shock.
Efforts so far have been patchy, with bank loans still
providing most funding for companies, rather than stock or bond
issues.
But most EU states remain opposed to a major centralisation
of supervision, such as an EU version of the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, preferring to maintain a national role in
markets.
"Centralised supervision and regulation is very important
and you see this in other places where there are very deep and
extensive debt and equity capital markets," said Kevin Wall,
chief executive of Barclays Europe.
He said the political and economic stars were aligned and it
was in every EU state's interest to have a deeper and more
liquid capital market, Wall said.
"Over the last few months in the crisis... we have seen,
relatively, a lot more equity issuance in the UK, in the
(United) States, than we have across Europe. One of the reasons
is the capital markets union, its development and progress,"
Wall said.
Verena Ross, executive director of the EU's European
Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), said having uneven
supervision and detailed national rules were a major barrier to
a genuine CMU.
But the "mixed model" of national and EU supervision is
likely to stay, she said.
Danuta Hubner, a member of the European Parliament, said it
was time to get on with creating a CMU that makes the EU
globally competitive.
"We cannot spend the next 10 years reflecting on what is
more important," she said.
(Reporting by Huw Jones
Editing by Gareth Jones)
