EU single market integration, internal barriers and strategic approaches to trade and economic unity form part of the agenda at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026.
Europe’s leaders and financial executives argued that the EU single market’s “second act” must turn Europe’s abundant savings into risk capital for growth, competitiveness, and sovereignty. Panelists stressed three priorities: stronger pension pillars (including auto-enrolment), simpler and more growth-oriented regulation, and far better financial education. As Amundi’s Valerie Baudson put it: “Pensions, regulation, education.” She warned that rules such as Solvency and MiFID can deter equity investment, while low literacy leaves citizens vulnerable—“84% have heard about crypto” but far fewer grasp basic savings tools.
Industry leaders called securitization a practical bridge to scale capital markets. Deutsche Bank’s Christian Sewing said Europe must be “bolder” and balance risk control with growth, urging common market infrastructure and “one supervision.” He framed capital markets as strategic autonomy: US banks already dominate European sovereign bond trading, a dependence Europe should not deepen.
Policymakers acknowledged progress but admitted the political economy is slow. ECB President Christine Lagarde cited Europe as “the product of our history” and criticized lengthy EU lawmaking cycles; she supported faster pathways like “coalitions of the willing” and more qualified majority voting. Spain’s Carlos Cuerpo argued a genuine safe asset and joint issuance could cut borrowing costs—freeing “50 billion on a yearly basis.” The session closed with cautious optimism that momentum is finally shifting from debate to delivery.
We go for. We go for quality rather than quantity. Yeah. Okay. We're ready to start. We shall start. Welcome to this session. Second act for the single market. Welcome to those who are watching online. And welcome to those in the room. We are back to Europe after a small American interlude with President Trump's speech this afternoon. So let's talk about the serious matters. We have been, we've been talking about financial integration in the eurozone and the European Union, for many, many years. Many people here are veterans of the global financial crisis and the eurozone debt crisis. And really, since then, we've talked about how to integrate the financial markets in Europe better. I want to I'm Martin Sandbu from the Financial Times. I'm really honored to be moderating this session because we have a stellar panel. I will very briefly introduce you because you don't really need an introduction, but at least to to say who we all are from, from what is it? Right to left, left to right. Your view? Christine Lagarde, president of the ECB Carlos Cuerpo, economy minister of Spain. Christiane Saving, CEO of Deutsche Bank, Annette Bosman, CEO of APG Group, the Dutch pension provider, and Valerie Bodson, CEO of Amundi, the asset manager. Before I start asking questions of my panelists, I just wanted to share one. One thing I learned, in the many meetings we have in between sessions at the World Economic Forum, I was talking to a founder of a startup in payment space, banking space. And I was asking about this fragmentation in Europe. How big of a problem is it, how easy is it to scale and so on. And the anecdote I heard, it was a new fact to me, but I found it illustrative for what we're talking about. So this person was telling me that, to provide services in the example was Portugal, but I think it applies broadly. The entity needed to be able to give Portuguese Iban numbers. So Iban numbers really should be very standardized things. Right? But it turned out there is some discrimination. There are some institutions that have online fields where you can't fill in something that doesn't start with PT, in this case, all kinds of really unnecessary problems. And in order to get a Portuguese Iban number, you had to have some people on the ground in Portugal. And anyway, there were all these little things that defeated a little bit the purpose of Passporting rules of the integration we already have. Now, I'm not going to ask any of you about that specific issue, but I wanted to start out because I think it's a good, very concrete example of, of what we're talking about, why this is important. It's not just abstract, bureaucratic, technical rules. It really does affect what business people and citizens in the end. And people who want to set up their own businesses can do on the ground, and therefore, how we can address the challenge of raising Europe's growth rate. So that was my little introduction to kind of focus on or focus us on the concrete matters. And so I want to start by asking, not our policymakers. So I ask for your permission to wait a little bit with you, but ask the financial industry representatives on the panel to just give me, in quite concrete terms, their one or 2 or 3 top requests, requested deliverables. What is it you don't have that you would really like to have in terms of progress of financial integration and financial regulation at the EU and eurozone level? Because then we get straight into talking about why have we, why haven't we been able to to get to this yet and what are we doing to fix it. So maybe I'll just start from the far end. Valerie, if you want to give us your 1 or 2 priorities, what would you like to get fixed now that that you don't have.
Fixed or improved? I'll use three words, because I think the, the, the whole topic is to, increase the level of capital that either institutions or individuals are putting in our continent. So I would say first pensions, second regulation, third education, pensions. It's because it's the best way for individual citizens to take more risk to invest in stocks, which they definitely do not do enough in Europe, especially if we compare it to the US. And it's nearly true for all countries in Europe. So everything we can do and this is in the process in the in the current discussion on the Savings and Investment Union, to increase the, the level of pensions and the individual pensions, especially the internal enrollment, for instance, system that are arising would be great. Second regulation, on the institutional side, we do have an issue with solvency. Life insurers have a huge bulk of money, that they cannot invest in stocks or not enough because the regulation is too strict. That's for institutions and for individuals. The regulation we have MiFID which is supposed to protect them which is really important is so scary for bankers. You will you will tell me if I'm right, but so scary for bankers and for citizens themselves that they do not invest in capital anymore. So they should be reviewed a little bit as well. And last but not least, to stay short education. There is a level of financial education in Europe which is extremely low. This is true in every country, and I would love to see our children learn a little bit, a little bit. Very simple things about finance, savings and investment in all schools from 12 to 18. And I think it could improve a little bit the situation.
Thank you very much. Very useful. Annette.
Yeah. Maybe also start like what you started of the why we need the capital into finance the Draghi report. So so we need this capital for European competitiveness. And my list is a bit the same. Maybe later I speak about pensions but it's about simplification maybe to add to it securitization or the ability to for more securitization. But my colleague here on the right side will know more about that. And Eurobonds and one capital market so it can be more deep and more attractive for institutional capital like ours. We manage pension capital, and I think we're from the, from the Netherlands. So an example of what you're mentioning that we have savings about 1.8 billion, which is now being managed on the capital markets and in private assets instead of being on savings accounts, because the Dutch. But I think all Europeans like to put their money on savings. I think the number is 10 trillion. So if we are able to put that money at work for European competitiveness by doing the things you mentioned about pension, I think unfunded pension system in all member states, which fits fits each member state. So I'm not thinking about one European pension system, but facilitating and helping other member states to do something like this without enrollment will be a very good start. And and make the capital available for the markets and for European competitiveness.
Fantastic. Another really good short list of very concrete things that could be done. Christiane, please. Not easy to follow. My colleagues covered everything. No, there are a couple of items I would like to, drill in a bit more securitisations. To be honest, we have come a certain way already, and I have to say, I mean, it's my fourth or fifth panel on capital markets Union. We are far better than three, four and five years ago. We see progress and that that we should really know it. It's not only always about complaining. We see progress. And the nicest thing is, wherever you go in Europe with whomever you speak, in each and every individual country, everybody wants to have the capital markets union or the Savings and Investment Union, which is real progress. We haven't seen that unity 2 or 3 years ago. That's number one. Securitisations we need to do more. The proposal we got to be honest, is not sufficient. I actually see that Secretary is the bridge into the capital markets union. We can generate far more liquidity, far more volumes into the European market. And therefore, we need to reopen the discussion on securitization. And we need to also be bolder. And, you know, our mindset needs to be more on growth and just on risk aversion. This is a problem which we still have in Europe, that the first question is risk aversion and not how can we support growth. We need the right balance. But I think we are still in the mindset too much on risk aversion. Second part goes into regulation. And that is actually in my view, and we have a good example with the ECB also on the supervisory board, we need one supervision. And that for the different asset classes we need less exchanges, we need clearer common United Market infrastructure also post-trade infrastructures. I think that would help tremendously simply to take the complexity out of the market, because there is so much willingness from foreign investors to invest in Europe, and therefore, let's make it less complex for them to invest here. And that has something to do with one common infrastructure. And last but not least, again mentioned by by my colleagues and I can only subscribe it. I think we also need to be careful only to look at Brussels or the ECB or the Commission in parallel. The most important to get a capital markets union done is to make our domestic capital markets deeper. And that starts, for instance, in a country like ours. And therefore I'm so happy that the government is pursuing in Germany our pension reform, this is the most important. We shift 300 billion of deposits in the Euroland every year to the US. The Drudge Report says that we need 1000 billion actually to invest every year. We have the inner financing strengths here. Let's if we move on our domestic capital markets, I think a good job is done. And therefore, if we can combine these things, secularization as a bridge market infrastructure package, make it concrete, less supervision, i.e. less, one supervision, so to say. And then development of the domestic capital markets union, I think then we see a further improve over the next 12 months.
Thank you so much. That was fantastically useful. And I just want before I go to our policymakers, I just want to highlight something that came out of a couple of comments. Just the basic kind of paradox here is that Europe has acknowledged huge investment needs. So about a trillion from I think it was originally 800 in the Draghi report. And then you add on defense things and huge savings and yet a huge savings export surplus. Right. These 300, 400 billion that are the counterpart of the current account surplus. And as you just mentioned, Christian investors abroad looking for opportunities in Europe. So there's clearly something that isn't quite working. And there's something probably also has to do with something else that came up in several of the comments that there is a lot of saving, but not a lot of risk seeking capital. So I just wanted to highlight that because it seems to me to distill the, the, the conceptual challenge we're trying to solve here with concrete policies. So we have two fantastic policymakers who will, of course, give us the answers to how we how we get there. I would like you to at least spend a tiny bit of time, both of you, to explain why why we've been thinking about these things for so long and we still aren't quite there. I think it's important to acknowledge progress, but it's still a bit of a puzzle. I mean, maybe Minister will start with you because it's clear that many of these things are things that can be done at national level. A pension system, private pension system, for example. Spain is not one of the countries that has a very big private pillar in the pension system. So maybe you can, in addition to proposals and way forwards, just explain a bit the politics of why this isn't happening in the national, in nation states.
Well, we get the difficult questions, Christine, but,
With great power comes great responsibility.
No, thanks. I think, I mean, we heard three different opinions or to do lists on, on on the Savings and Investment Union. And we get an idea of the challenge that is ahead. Also, in terms of the number of elements that are part of the Savings and Investment Union, I think that might have been one of the key political challenges. We're talking about many different, instruments, many different measures. And in the end, it might be a bit daunting, a bit too much of a task to take in in one go. You know, it's these, sentence of how do you how does a mouse eat an elephant? Bite by bite? No. So somehow or one bite at a time. And in this case, I think there are elements that have been put on the table over the past few years that are allowing us to to take those steps or to have those, those bites. Let me, focus maybe on, on, on one, but I'll make three points. So one is governance. And we all know that, governance might be, might have its advantages at the EU level, but also some high somehow. Sometimes it impedes or it really slows down. When we want to have urgent actions or rapid progress. And on this, we, I think we've done quite a remarkable thing over the past year and a half, which is that we've put novel instruments on the table to be able to, of course, align with the commission intentions, to go ahead in, in more flexible formats, in an agile way, in this coalition of the willing formats that are allowing us. And let me just give you one example to, for example, make progress on securitization. So there is one specific proposal where the ECB is also helping out on the table, put forward by Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain to create an EU platform to be able to standardize, reduce costs by sharing actually and therefore fostering a greater use of of this tool, which actually, if we close the gap with respect to the US in terms of its share, it would free up at least 1 trillion in terms of banks balance sheets. Just to give you an example of how things are moving in practice, thanks to these little changes in governance. Then another area where we are making progress, I think, is finding ways around the, the huge, or the most difficult political discussions where there is a lot of political capital to be put in. We're talking about harmonization of difficult areas like insolvency, for example. So progress there with the regime, 28 sort of examples or exercises would be more than welcome, where you have this mutual recognition that can help out, and in this case, again, have a quicker way forward or even the use of technology, you know, using AI to be able to, to deal with, with the complexity of having fragmentation can also help us, go forward and help our companies navigate these, these, these complex, fragmented contexts. But let me, also, when we talk about the domestic efforts, how what we can do, there is an element also, for example, coming from domestic or national promotional banks, how they can help also with together with the private sector, for example with first loss absorption capacity to foster this element of of joint projects in in this case and the development of of national domestic markets. And then I heard the word Eurobonds. And then I have to, to step in because I think the element or the discussion around, a safe, a true safe asset, the joint issuance, of, of a size that can make a difference in terms of, liquidity, in terms of depth of our issuance in euros can make a big difference. And let me I mean, it's a it's a very easy back of the envelope calculation. But, you look at the G5, the big five countries in the eurozone, how much the of public outstanding debt there is, it's around 9 trillion. If you take the average cost of these five countries and you look at, our safe assets, so to say right now, which is Germany, and you do this very easy exercise of thinking that you could close this gap between these average cost and the German cost, you would free up 50 billion on a yearly basis. 5050 billion.
Five zero.
Exactly, which is actually twice as much as we will be paying in terms of next generation costs from next year onwards. So again.
It's almost half of the EU budget.
Well, we're talking about 2 trillion the EU budget.
For a year right.
Well the MFF is seven years 2 trillion, but indeed.
Billion per year.
50 billion on a yearly basis. So for seven years that makes 350 quarter.
Yeah.
So again it's just the the dimension of the impact that these measures could, could have. And how I think at this stage these discussions are important to be put forward.
That is fascinating. Your mention of interest rates. And of course, it'd be a good thing to to bring down the spreads further. President Trump, of course, complained and said that the US should be paying the lowest interest rate in the world and its public debt. I mean, I think, I think it's a fact that almost every, if not every EU or eurozone country probably pays less on its debt than the than the US government does. I mean, you could correct me, Madame Lagarde. But I turn to you now. You, of course, have the overview perspective as president of of one of these united, or common institutions for the eurozone in this case, but you also have experience as a national finance minister. So you have seen how these things work at both levels. So, so I'd like to hear your view of how you assess the progress of how we're actually progressing on, on these many dossiers that were mentioned, and how optimistic we are entitled to be that things will get better.
First of all, the European Central Bank works fine, thank you very much. And we are delivering on our objective. So once I've said that, I was thinking of your previous questions. Why? Why is that? Why is it that, our three, colleagues and friends are raising some specific areas where they would like to see progress and why is there no progress? And I was thinking of two reasons. And I'll give you a couple of examples. First of all, I think we are the product of our history, and we have a history of having consolidated national regimes of each and every member states, growing gradually over the course of time from I'm thinking about the euro area, of course, because that's where the euro is, is used from 11 to now, 21 member states. And being the product of our history, the sequel of that history have in the main remained in place. And as a result of that, you have the issue of what happens at the integrated level, which could be made simpler and faster, and I can come back to that. But you also have the national level where if you look at where simplification can happen, is a significant area. And I, you know, with my governors around the table, we are 20, we will soon be 27. We are 27 with Bulgaria. Now, I said, don't forget that charity begins at home. And you Portuguese example is a perfect case in point where there is a harmonization and internal market. And yet there are characteristics, specificities that have to do with the language, with the culture, with the history, with the territory, with the agencies that have survived that process of integration. So that's number one. So all of that is characterized by it being way too slow. Things are I mean, Christiane, you will remember, I think the first time you invited me to the European Banking Association in Frankfurt and I gave a speech on Capital Market Union that was more than six years ago, and the two of us were in complete agreement on the key points where we had to move and we had to deliver. And it is now beginning to happen. And I'm so pleased that on securitisation, we have made progress. We're not completely there where you would like it to be, but it's progress. But the single supervision, which in my view is so important, will be proposed in the first quarter of 2026 has been announced already. But what I'm trying to get at is why is it way too slow, and what can we do about it? Because from the moment we talk about it, there is some work of consensus building between the industry, the policymakers, the political leaders, the members of parliament. Then there is a proposition that is put on the table by the Commission, which also iterates and discuss with the lobbyists and with the industry and lots of people. And then it is passed on to another body or generally two bodies, because it's a trilogue discussion that takes place and you have the European Council. So the leaders at a lower level, corporate ambassadors, whatever, and you have the parliament, and then these three come together commission, council, parliament. And before you get to something that is actually implementable in the hope that it doesn't go to the European Court of Justice for challenges, a lot of time has elapsed. I'll give you a very, very clear example, which is dear to my heart, the digital euro, which I'm not surprised nobody mentioned, but which we believe is not so much in the industry's interest, although that's debatable, but definitely in the public interest for multiple reasons. Well, I started with that when I joined the ECB more than six years ago. Now it will come to Parliament for hopefully some vote in May or June. Six and a half years later after we started the work. So that gives you an idea of how long we take to come to deliverables. So I have a suggestion. I think that the momentum has changed a lot, and I think there are more and more the leaders, the industry, the policymakers are on the same page. And when you have sort of common adversity or difficult situation that you're facing, it brings you to that, that that momentum. I think we have to look at all ways of transgressing and progressing. And I think that what Carlos was saying about the coalition of the willing is a good example of how eventually we transgress.
Indeed.
It's not the normal way to conduct business in Europe. And yet, with your initiative rallying some of the key players, it's probably going to move the needle more, more, more, less, less slowly, I observed, and I was in the, in the European Council room when it happened. How the approach has changed in relation to majority or unanimity. So many things in Europe we've been told ever and ever are by unanimous consent. And if you have 1 or 2 outliers, it's going to block the process. Well guess what? For the issuance of the €90 billion to support Ukraine, the member states decided that they were going to go with qualified majority voting. And as a result of that, the three outliers who did not want to participate in the process were left to the side, did not participate, and the others are going to share the burden that they should have, that they should have have borne. So I think there are ways, even within the parameters of the treaty and the secondary legislation, without having to change the treaty to progress. The cause for which there is common will between industry, policymakers, public interest in the current circumstances that we are facing. I want to go back to one point that Valerie. Valerie has mentioned, which I could not agree more, and it touches on the sense of risk taking that I think Christiane also referred to financial literacy. I grew up a little bit in the United States, and maybe some of you in this room have as well. You learn the sense of risk taking much earlier in your life than you do in certainly most, educational system in Europe. From what I have seen and what my central bank governors from around the euro area are telling me, it is time to change that. And I'm very proud that the central bank of the euro area have decided to embark on financial literacy. Advising, advocating, propagating, using the resources that they have, using the staff that they have in order to make sure that people understand better what is risk taking, what is a variable interest? What is compounded interest? How do you manage your budget? Things that are pretty basic for many, but which are not very well known by the majority of people we are. This is a bit of advertising now for what we're doing. We are focusing on women because it's a general observation throughout Europe that financial literacy is less developed in the women's community. And we are we have now for for the second year, we're going to use March the 8th, which is the International Day of Women, to focus on financial literacy programs. And how much has been done, how much has progressed and how we can go further. It sounds a bit, you know, sort of trivial or mundane. It is not. It's really, really important. So I'm so pleased that that you mentioned it. And I hope we can deliver.
Can I just.
Add one thing to this, argument that Christine was saying, which I think is key, and has become even more relevant today when our children, teenagers are exposed to tons of information. And, for example, there are surveys done at the ECB level for all European countries saying that around 60% of our citizens know about savings accounts, but 84 have heard about crypto. So again, we it increases the need for these, to come very early in, I mean, 12, ten, 12 years old. I think it's a it's a great time to really start understanding basic concepts, but also risks associated to some of these, you have fraud also scams associated to financial instruments. So we are in a different world than we were. And the need for these as, as, as I think substantial increase.
Was going to say what they hear about what they hear about crypto probably isn't always correct. I'm just going to take the take the opportunity that was opened by President Lagarde and mentioned that the FTT also has a financial literacy charity.
Yes, flick.
So please look it up and please contribute generously.
Patrick Jenkins is doing a great job.
With that. Exactly. Yes, our deputy editor. So we're very proud of that. And we completely agree. Annette.
Yes, I also completely agree. But we also need more. Maybe it's more paternalistic approach, but even when you are teaching all the principles of risk taking and financial management of your own household, there is still reluctance to do savings for the longer period for your pension. So I would also add to that auto enrolment and having systems which are a bit paternalistic, as I said, but just also from a younger age, do the savings, especially for women. In the Netherlands, the pension gap for women is 40%, so women have 40% less pension compared to men. And that is growing at this stage. So financial literacy, yes. But also something like auto enrolment and unfunded pensions from social partners.
Is it because of part time work for women in the Netherlands?
Yes, it is due to part time work and in the new system where we go from a defined benefit to defined contribution system, that means especially the euros you do for the savings for later in the period of your 30s in which women happen to work more part time are very expensive euros. So.
Christiane, you.
Know, when we talked about financial education, it brought me to a point that that I think we need to work on. Also, the overall transparency, why capital markets at all? We still have, in my view, a little bit of a historic debate on capital markets. And of course, also influenced by all that, what we what we experienced in 2007, 2008, partially, absolutely also done by us. But, you know, we are we are in the middle of a geopolitical challenge, which we have all not seen before. At least I haven't seen it in 36 years of banking and capital markets. Why is it so important? It's actually not important. Or the primary reason is not important. In order to increase the revenues or the profitability of the European capital markets banks. But I'll give you one example, and that has something to do with regulation and capital markets. The US banks, the top US banks dominate with 65%. The trading of European sovereign bonds. If we get if we don't follow the US in so-called implementing frtb like it is actually seen by Basel II, I don't think actually or the US, we will see what they will do, but in case we would actually go ahead with a full implementation of Frtb. And I'm glad actually that the Commission delayed that decision. That would mean if we would even have more capital requirements for that, that would mean that the dominance of the US banks would go beyond 90%.
This is for the.
Book, for the trading book and trading of sovereign bonds. So capital markets has also something to do with sovereignty. So do we really want in this situation? We are all in that we have I don't have any problem. We should have the competition of the US banks. They are good banks. But should we really have a situation where 90% of the European sovereign bonds are actually traded in the US? And that means and I don't think that the public is actually aware of that. And whenever I talk also to politicians, not to policymakers, not to the ECB, that's clear there, but to politicians, they are actually surprised we need to get these messages through, because that actually is why we you know, it's at the end of the day, a dependency like Germany had a dependency on gas from Russia. And we should take that very seriously. Also, from a sovereignty point of view.
I mean, there is this view that part of the problem or part of the delay in getting all this done is because of the dominance of banks also kind of politically in, in Europe. But it does seem like the industry is open to would welcome more capital markets. You know, in the end. Well, yes.
To be honest, I mean, this is this is something I'm surprised about this question to be very honest, because even in Germany and you know, that we have the three pillar system, we have the saving banks, we have the cooperative banks, and we have the private banks. When it comes to capital markets union, there is no disagreement. There is potentially disagreement on the banking union. Yes, but we can we can we can implement the capital markets union without the banking union. So let's focus on that.
Union is fine as well.
I know that, you see, to be honest, we as Deutsche Bank, no problem with that.
You're saying this is an outmoded view to think that the banking industry, and maybe particularly the German industry is an obstacle here.
For capital markets Union. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Right. Sorry. Valerie.
Yeah. I think, I very much agree about the sovereignty topic. I wanted to stress it a little bit. I think that at the European level, finance and especially financial actors have not always been considered as a tool of sovereignty, whereas they are they are because banks are asset managers, like Amundi is one. I mean, we manage 2.3 trillion around the world. We, we, we have huge assets invested in both the debt and companies in Europe. So it is a question of sovereignty. And if I may add one point, because we're working everywhere in the world, which is striking me in Europe, is that especially in terms of investment, we know that individuals are investing quite often because they have a little tax incentive to it. It depends on the country. There are different cultures and different histories, as Madame Lagarde was saying. But still it's a it's very important for, for, for most citizens. And most of the time there is no constraint to invest in Europe, even when the envelope has a tax incentive, which is crazy. You cannot see that anywhere else in the world when there is a tax incentive where the country is paying, when the citizens are paying, by definition, we want to support assets in the country and in Europe. Most of the time there is no such thing. So I think we should all consider that finance is a question of sovereignty. Financial actors and European financial actors should be considered as tools of sovereignty, and we should make sure, especially when there is a tax incentive into a investment, that investments are done in Europe.
That's a really enlightening observation. Do you think this is changing? Are you seeing a change in this attitude, a greater awareness of financial system as a sovereignty?
I think I think the both, reports of letter and Draghi, the fact that we are working, all of us so much to improve the saving and investment unions on I mean, all the financial community right now is moving on that. So definitely we have progressed. What is being discussed right now is a matter of progress, I think at the European level. I think most now of the people responsible do understand that finance is a question of sovereignty. It's not only about food, energy or or what can I say, defense. Obviously, right now it's also a question of having the right people financing what you want to do. It's a tool, but it's an essential tool. It's not totally understood, but it's progressing.
It's progressing. Yeah. I mean, it strikes me that the digital euro and you're also working on CBDC, central bank digital currency at the wholesale level. But this has been justified not only but also as a sovereignty matter.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. I'll try to take a few kind of dark here, but if I can see if I can see the audience. I have plenty of questions. But if there are questions there. Yes, I see one in the back. Let's start with that. Could you please stand up so we can see you and introduce yourself?
Hello. My name is Jim Beck. I'm not an institutional investor. I'm more of a retail investor in the United States. And one of the key differences I see between the US and the EU when it comes to it, is that even there's a very active culture of retail investment in America. And if you see, like Reddit, people make, means of Jay Powell whenever he gives keynote addresses. So there's like, you could see that as some fun culture, but you could also see it as a culture where in like retail investors have faith and have trust of central banks and of stewards of economy. And I'm wondering if there's a Europe should also adopt those kind of American culture of approachable when it comes to central bankers and to other institutions of finances.
So this is.
I want to take up that question.
Yeah. This is a really interesting question because you're suggesting it's not just financial education literacy. It's it's actual cultural attitudes. Let's just see if there is another question right away. Yes. Two actually. So if you can be very brief, we'll fit in both. Is there any stand up please.
To just German director.
Can you stand up please? Sorry.
German director. Is there anything to justify confidence on common supervision? And if so, how will you know the little financial centers that are quite big, but in small countries, how will they be taken care of and persuaded?
Very good. Thank you. Please stand up.
Danish industry. We still are part of Greenland, by the way. But can you explain? This becomes super technical. We need to get this through Parliament. How do we present this in a way to the European population? So people understand the benefits of our capital integration. All you say here, it makes sense for us in this room. And we understand all the technicalities, but it's always the lingo being used. How can people understand that this will enhance the quality of life? How can you present that case?
Very good question. And you have in mind the entire the general agenda of financial integration. Or do you have in mind a.
Specific in the EU?
Yes. Very good. Three excellent questions. I think, President Lagarde, I think you wanted to start with the culture question.
Yes. Thank you very much for your question and for, invoking the fed, particularly today, because my thoughts are with, with the fed today, actually, but I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, to two things. One is we try to assess whether we are understood, whether the business that we conduct is appreciated or not, but particularly that whether the Europeans, see the value of the central bank. And surprisingly so, more than 60% of European in all European countries of the European Union appreciate, understand, value, the work that is done by the ECB. This is work that we have done together with a survey of whether the euro itself as a currency is valued or not. And on that front, we have an even better result, because 82% of Europeans actually value the euro and see it as a, you know, a common denominator for them. The second thing that I want to mention, and we've done a lot of work for the last six years on that front, is try to simplify the words that we use to communicate. I'm not the only one to have tried that. Jay Powell actually had tried it, and he had tried to do the sort of dual usage communication, talking jargon with the experts, the the fed watchers and the analysts and all that and a more common language with the general public. That and he told me, he said that was difficult, didn't work out. And obviously the watchers were watching what he was saying in plain words. And the plain words did not exactly carry what the technical jargon was explaining. And so you eventually had inconsistencies and risk of conflict, of of understanding. So what we do is we measure the difficulty of understanding what we say, particularly in the the monetary policy statement that we issue in my press conference, when, whenever we have a monetary policy decision and we are actually performing quite well on, on that front, because the difficulty of the language, and the level of education required to understand what I say or what is in the monetary policy statement is significantly lower than the level of education required to understand what the fed is saying. Now, it's not because the fed is far more intelligent and sophisticated than the ECB. I would challenge that, but we have put special emphasis on that in order to be to be understood, because we think that, for instance, inflation expectations have a lot to do with what people appreciate we are doing in order to deliver on price stability. So I take your point. I think that the retail investors are far fewer in Europe than they are in the United States. For us to look at the the television shows and the various, media that are spending time and energy on explaining how the stock market operates, what yields mean, what other spreads and blah, blah, blah. But I don't think it's a factor of how we we operate and deliver.
I suppose we should point out, per Valerie's point, that the US does have tax incentives for for retail investment. Right. And European countries have the same.
If I may add to this, also in terms of trust, there's an element of trust to the intermediaries, to to the banks, to the branches that are delivering these products to the to the retail investors. And we had this very, nice proposal on, on retail investment strategy, which talks about transparency and, limiting also the conflict of interests when it comes to really, putting these sort of products on the table for retail investors so that they do not get scared away by the complexity of their words, by these very long contracts that they do not understand, that they do not even read. So there's a lot of work to be done there, I think, to be able to to bring them closer to something different than just a savings account or, or a deposit or even a specific treasury or a short term bill in, in our treasuries.
Before we go to Christian and the others, just, Minister cuerpo, while you while you're speaking, I'd also like you to address the question from Zettelmaier about how confident we should be in common supervision actually being passed, because this is something you and your colleagues will be your counterparts will be talking about.
Well, that's one of the discussions that we've been having.
For some time.
For the for the past few years. And here, let me just be a bit optimistic, and, and give a sense of progress, in the direction of a common understanding of, of how we can get, to have a, I would say a joint view on how to move with asthma and, and joint supervision as well. And, and I think a few countries, that were in the small countries, group, opting for another choice are willing to move ahead and, and look at intermediate solutions. That can be, again, a step towards, having, maybe a first best, but we might not be able to reach that first best in, in one go, but we are able to make progress in, in the sense of having more efficiency on at least some of the institutions are dealt with or supervised at the, at the euro area level. But let me also, take for one second the last question.
Very quickly, because we're running out of time and I want the others to be able to.
I think it's important to relay this sense of, of benefit of the Savings and Investment Union to the public is not easy. And we have to understand that the opportunity cost concept is a very difficult one to convey. And, just giving examples, I think would be the easy way to go forward. Spain Spanish companies have invested more for the past ten years in Uruguay than in the whole Eastern Europe. When you add all the countries all together thinking that just Poland is ten times the size of Uruguay. So that's one way to look at the opportunity cost of those flows not staying in Europe.
For example.
Well, on on on how to convince the people. To be honest, I think we need to be more honest with them. And that's the discussion we have in Germany. We simply need to be honest that the state pension will not be sufficient in future to make up their life. We just went out with a survey and compared to 2019, now 85% of the Germans are saying that the state pension will not be sufficient for their pension age. Now, this is good because it comes from 46% in 2019 that you see, and I think in this regard, if politicians are honest and are table it and we have solutions like pension reforms, I do believe that actually the acceptance level also for savings and investment will go up immediately. So I really do believe people will actually, digest far more truth if we also present the solution. Number two, with regard to savings investment Union, one major push in the positive direction we actually got from the corporates. The corporates were saying at some point in time we need more than simply bank financing. We need actually the capital markets. And that helped a lot that a stakeholder, somebody who needs the money, who wants to invest is calling out for that. It's always better than lobbying by yourself for it.
Annette and Valerie, you both have savers as your clients, so you have answers, I think, to some of these questions about what what what does it take culturally and how do you get the Democratic buy in?
No, I think culturally, these people yeah, I know these people. And I also know that it's very difficult to reach them. But I think what what what, what does work is what we do is communicated the real assets we are investing in on which they can be proud, for example, the electrical grid, we are investing in and then tell the narrative around it that it is not just an investment with returns, but it's also something to make your life a bit better and which you can use. And it's better for your well-being. So be more open and communicate about the investments, the real assets you are investing in and what what you achieve there.
Well, just to to say one last word, I think the main difference between the US and Europe is that in the US, citizens are handling their own retirement pension schemes for ages. In Europe it's not the case most of the time. So I think it's really important auto enrolment, making sure people start managing their own money, education, everything which is in favour of encouraging investment, will be and will go in the right direction.
I wish we could keep talking, but I get sort of big flashing red lights here, but there's not much more to say. But I think we can take away this actually quite a bit of optimism in that at least things are changing. And I think accelerating is the sense, I guess, from far too slow to at least moving and and moving faster. So I think we do need some optimism these days. So and especially about Europe. So I think I will I will leave it there and encourage you all to support the improved work that's going on. Thank you very much to everyone.
Thank you.