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Ireland believes it can secure a deal to deepen Europe’s capital markets by the year-end, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has told the FT, overcoming decade-old EU divisions in an attempt to mobilise trillions of euros in savings into productive investments.
The so-called savings and investment union has been pitched as a groundbreaking overhaul to integrate the EU’s 27 national capital markets so Europe can try to bridge the yawning investment gap with the US and China.
Martin said there was already “about 80 per cent agreement” on a plan led by the EU’s six largest economies and that EU countries “can get to a landing zone” by the year-end. Dublin will take control of the EU’s rotating presidency for the second half of 2026.
“There are ways of landing this,” Martin said, adding he had held detailed discussions with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron on compromises. “We would like to do it by the end of the presidency.”
The centrepiece of the savings and investment union, first pitched in 2015 as the capital markets union, is a proposal to centralise supervision of key financial entities. This would bring large stock exchanges, central counterparties and central securities depositories under the oversight of the Paris-based European Securities and Markets Agency.
Brussels believes more centralised supervision would ensure even application of EU rules and spur consolidation in a highly fragmented landscape.
Ireland in the past has objected to this move for fear of losing influence and control over its outsized financial sector. A majority of smaller countries also oppose shifting supervision to the EU level, fearing it would dilute their ability to attract business.
But Martin said the initiative was essential if Europe wanted to improve its competitiveness, a priority for Ireland during its six-month presidency, including efforts to deepen the single market and advance energy integration.
“People might have been sceptical about our historic commitment to the savings investment union, but . . . I agree that it has to be 27,” he said. “We believe there’s a capacity to get a consensus on this.”
“Europe has to make a leap forward because competitiveness is a key issue vis-à-vis the US, vis-à-vis China,” Martin said. “You can complain about the others, but if you don’t have your own house in order, you really can’t complain.”
Martin argued deeper capital markets were essential to help European start-ups and growing companies access funding at home. “Historically even in Ireland most of the SMEs and scaling companies head to the US for venture capital,” he said.
His intervention comes as the EU’s six biggest economies — Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands — have created an informal group to push for faster progress on capital markets integration. But Martin said it could be achieved with all 27 countries.
“My view is that when we joined the common market, there were huge initial challenges but it was a huge success for Ireland,” Martin said, predicting that a capital markets union would be the same.
He said Ireland would act as an “honest broker” despite its own sizeable financial services industry, arguing Dublin had a responsibility to put aside national concerns and seek a compromise among all EU countries.
At the same time, the bloc had to keep its overall simplification agenda in mind in this discussion, Martin said.
“Europe’s got to be very conscious that it doesn’t alienate other key players because of a perception that it may lead to over-regulation or too much centralised regulation. And in many ways there will be an evolution.”
Additional reporting by Paola Tamma in Brussels
