Notes from Europe – Page 4
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Weighty in-tray for new CMU commissioner
Valdis Dombrovskis has assumed responsibility as commissioner in charge of the flagship Capital Markets Union project. But he has also assumed the added complication of the withdrawal of the UK
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Posted worker woes
It will not be the first time that proposed revisions to EU rules affecting finance and pensions get stuck in a logjam between interests groups
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Tax targeting continues
Pressure to clean up the financial sector has led to copious legislation from Brussels.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Ethical pressures mount
There are plenty of indicators of rising pressure to advance ethical standards across the financial sector. One outcome takes the form of mountains of clean-up legislation, including from Brussels.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Beefing up the CMU
Inadequacy of European national court systems in the financial sphere is due for overhaul. Upgrade is necessary if the EU’s capital markets union programme (CMU) is going to get anywhere, according to a high-status paper
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Race to upgrade EFSI
Legislative moves to support the EU’s European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) are being rushed through Brussels. But, so far, evidence of any torrent of fund movement by the institutional investment sector across EU frontiers has yet to emerge.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A simmering conflict
Conflict continues to simmer over the issue of passport rights for non-EU-domiciled hedge funds across the EU
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A lawyer’s feast
It is a case of tackling one challenge after another in the Capital Markets Union (CMU). According to the European Commission, the present morass of different national insolvency rules creates a barrier to the flow of capital across the EU.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Cross-border challenge for IORP II
IORP II may have cleared the European Parliament’s committee stage but amendments tabled to the second directive covering occupational pensions since 2003 are so radical that it would be unwise to forecast its future.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Focus on low returns
Dismally low returns on EU pension fund investments over 15 years? The allegation comes in a study by Better Finance, the European Federation of Investors & Financial Services Users. The report, Pensions Savings: The Real Return, points to excessive fees, points to other charges, and badly framed taxation rules, as the culprits.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Pressure builds on tax havens
Brussels’ financial focus is on aggressive corporate tax planning and the related question of tax havens. This concerns the hedge fund ‘passport’ rights to do business across the EU and compliance of the offshore jurisdictions where they are domiciled to EU norms.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A tricky path ahead
The process of making pensions policy in Brussels between now and end of the year resembles two juggernauts moving towards each other
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Ready with the axe?
The lack of demand rather than supply for both credit and capital is a common criticism from investors of the EU’s capital market union (CMU) programme
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Awaking a sleep-walking economy
A few more European cross-border lending opportunities have started to emerge. This follows anticipation of the European Investment Plan launched by Jean-Claude Juncker
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Bond market scrutiny
There has been a flurry of activity and comment from industry groups on the subject of bond market liquidity
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Uphill battle for CMU
There is enthusiasm for the EU’s capital market union (CMU) project. However, it faces prodigious obstacles in achieving its 2019 deadline.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Bumpy road ahead
As far as investment is concerned, the EU faces a turbulent 2015. The efforts of Jean-Claude Juncker are central to arresting the EU economy from its zombie state.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Pensions in their sights
EU big shots working on how to release capital flows from funds into SMEs under the new Capital Market Union (CMU) programme should look at an existing scheme with similar aims.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Capital market union
The capital market union (CMU) is a new emphasis in Brussels and Jonathan Hill, the new Commissioner for financial services, mentioned the subject repeatedly at his initial vetting by MEPs.
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Opinion Pieces
A stinging rebuke
The private pension product sector is “persistently the worst-performing retail services market of all throughout the European Union”, according to the European Commission, as cited in a new report.