The Central Bank of Ireland published a speech by Governor Gabriel Makhlouf arguing that the EU's Savings and Investments Union will fall short unless Europe completes the wider Single Market for goods, services and capital. Speaking at the AFME European Financial Integration Conference, he said long-standing barriers in services and uneven national implementation are fragmenting capital markets, limiting cross-border investment and keeping savings in national systems. He noted that services account for about 75% of EU GDP, yet intra-EU trade in services is only 7.6% of GDP. Makhlouf said a genuine single capital market depends on two conditions. The first is a more complete regulatory architecture, including harmonised insolvency frameworks, convergent tax treatment of cross-border investment and deeper post-trade settlement infrastructure. The second is a single European safe asset. He pointed to NextGenerationEU bonds, with close to EUR 800 billion outstanding, as evidence that common issuance can work, but said their temporary design and average spread of around 50 basis points over German Bunds mean they do not yet function as a full safe asset. He also used Ireland to illustrate demand-side barriers, highlighting low household participation in capital markets despite EUR 172 billion of bank deposits, and pointed to national measures including a planned Personal Investment Account framework by 2027, a retail investment tax roadmap and pension auto-enrolment. On the Central Bank of Ireland's own role, he said it is promoting supervisory convergence at EU level and advancing its Regulating and Supervising Well programme to simplify authorisation, remove duplicative domestic anti-money laundering publications and apply stricter tests to new reporting requirements.
Central Bank of Ireland2026-05-19
Central Bank of Ireland Governor Gabriel Makhlouf calls for a genuine Single Market and a permanent European safe asset
The Central Bank of Ireland published a speech by Governor Gabriel Makhlouf warning that the EU’s Savings and Investments Union will fall short unless the Single Market for goods, services and capital is completed. He argued that a genuine single capital market requires a more complete regulatory architecture and a single European safe asset, and highlighted EU-level barriers and Irish demand-side constraints, including low household market participation despite EUR 172 billion of bank deposits. He said the Central Bank is promoting supervisory convergence and simplifying its regulatory framework through its Regulating and Supervising Well programme.