Europe’s Savings and Investments Union: Another Slogan, or a Strategy That Can Work?

Ignazio Angeloni () and Marco Pagano ()
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Ignazio Angeloni: SAFE Leibniz Institute for Financial Research, Institute for European Policymaking and Bocconi University
Marco Pagano: University of Naples Federico II, CSEF, EIEF, CEPR and ECGI., https://csef.it/people/marco-pagano/

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: The European Union’s proposed Savings and Investments Union seeks to address a longstanding paradox: Europe has abundant private savings but struggles to channel them into productive, long-term and risk-bearing investment. This article argues that the SIU will succeed only if it avoids treating capital-market development as an alternative to banking integration. Europe remains a bank-centered financial system, especially in financing small and medium-sized enterprises, and its capital markets can realistically develop only through the active participation of stronger, larger, and more cross-border banks. The article proposes four mutually reinforcing lines of action: creating a country-blind regulatory framework for cross-border banking groups; resisting national political interference in banking consolidation; developing simple and portable savings and pension instruments that mobilize household wealth for risk capital; and reviving securitization through standardization, sound regulation, and market-making support. The central message is that the SIU can become more than another European policy slogan only if it connects Banking Union and Capital Markets Union in a practical institutional strategy: using banks as the bridge between European savings and European investment needs.

Keywords: Savings and Investments Union, Banking Union, Capital Markets Union, financial Integration, cross-border banking; household savings, securitization, bank consolidation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F36 G21 G23 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec
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