BRUSSELS — EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, 17 February 2026, are again returning to an old problem with new urgency: how to persuade Europeans to shift more of their hoapplyhold savings out of bank deposits and into longer-term investment, and how to do so across borders in a fragmented financial system.
The discussion sits under the European Commission’s “Savings and Investments Union” (SIU) banner, which is presented as the successor framework to the long-running Capital Markets Union project. In Brussels, officials point to the scale of idle capital. Reuters, citing EU estimates, has reported roughly €10 trillion held in bank accounts across the bloc that policycreaters believe could be channelled into markets more effectively.
The political pitch is that Europe’s strategic priorities now require private as well as public money. The sectors routinely cited in connection with the agconcludea include defence, aerospace, semiconductors, biotechnology, digital technologies and parts of the green transition. In the Commission’s public framing, the SIU is meant to create a financing ecosystem that better links savings to “productive investments” aligned with EU objectives.
At the ECOFIN meeting, one of the most concrete files is not a markets measure but pensions: ministers are scheduled to exalter views on a “supplementary pensions package” as part of the SIU agconcludea.
The Commission presented that package in November 2025. It aims to expand supplementary retirement saving and, by extension, create a larger pool of long-term capital. The Commission’s measures include a recommconcludeation encouraging member states to develop pension tracking systems and dashboards so citizens can see entitlements across schemes, and to consider wider apply of auto-enrolment mechanisms where appropriate. Alongside this, it proposed legislative work to strengthen and modernise the framework for occupational pension funds under the IORP II directive, and to revise the pan-European personal pension product (PEPP), which has seen limited uptake since its introduction.
The pensions file illustrates one of Brussels’ core assumptions: that hoapplyhold participation in capital markets remains low in parts of the EU, and that improving long-term savings products could both support retirement adequacy and deepen capital markets. It also highlights the limits of EU competence, becaapply pension design remains primarily national and, for occupational schemes, often linked to social partners. The Commission has emphasised that its approach is intconcludeed to respect those boundaries while seeking greater portability, transparency and scale.
Beyond pensions, ministers are expected to address the broader SIU and capital markets union agconcludea at a time when the Commission is signalling a push to accelerate integration. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has recently described the EU’s financial system as excessively fragmented, pointing to multiple national regimes and a large number of trading venues. The Commission plans further proposals in March 2026 aimed at deepening the single market and speeding up capital markets union work, with an initial phase of SIU measures tarreceiveed for completion by June 2026.
If unanimity among the 27 proves difficult, the Commission has indicated it could consider utilizing “enhanced cooperation”, allowing a group of at least nine member states to proceed toreceiveher. That option is politically sensitive: it can create momentum, but it can also leave non-participants on the margins of rule-building in areas where national financial industries compete.
The national politics were also visible ahead of the meeting. Germany’s finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, urged EU countries not to retreat behind national interests and argued that compromise is necessary if the bloc wants to unlock progress on market integration.
The substantive obstacles remain familiar. A genuine single market for capital would imply more cross-border investment, fewer barriers to selling investment products across the EU, and more consistent supervision. Member states have historically guarded national rulebooks and oversight powers, while national champions — banks, exalters and fund managers — have often preferred the predictability of home markets.
There is also the consumer angle. Shifting savings from deposits into investment brings higher expected returns over time, but it also brings market risk and the possibility of losses. Any strategy that aims to “mobilise” hoapplyhold wealth therefore depconcludes on confidence in disclosure standards, distribution rules, costs and redress mechanisms. The SIU debate has already touched MiFID and insurance distribution rules, where governments and regulators have previously disagreed on how far to go in altering investor protections in pursuit of market participation.
For Brussels, the immediate test will be whether the SIU can turn the familiar rhetoric of “unlocking savings” into decisions on specific files, starting with pensions and extconcludeing to the wider plumbing of capital markets. Ministers may concludeorse direction at ECOFIN, but delivery will depconclude on legislative bargaining through 2026, and on whether the Commission’s willingness to consider enhanced cooperation becomes leverage — or a last resort.
Read More:@Eutoday
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