FECIF Editorial | June 2025

All that for that result ? The European Union has finally realized that it's too cumbersome and not effective enough. It's analyzing and questioning itself, but to what effect for our professions?

For half a dozen years, we've all been working to consider the future of the EU in terms of savings, corporate financing, ESG, and technology.

Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people have worked on these issues and consumed millions of hours of work on projects that ultimately... don't work!

That's the simple observation, even more debatable because it's made by the authorities and politicians themselves.

At the average cost of a consultant in Europe, the EU has destroyed hundreds of millions of euros.

But let's move on and start again, since this is what the out-of-touch, entrepreneur-free approach of some people leads us to. However, for us professionals and business leaders who are trying to help with these discussions, the bill is steep, and the method is so far removed from our approach, which alone allows for the development of the economy and these decision-making structures, by paying for everything.

So let's hope the EU has finally understood, and let's have a look at what's happening and what's in the pipeline.

The Retail Investment Strategy, part of the Capital Market Union, is moribund, having worried every business in the Union, from intermediation to banks and insurers, including asset management companies, which create and manage the funds that fuel the economy.

The Polish Presidency no longer believes in it, nor do several other Member States.

It must be said that the project, filtered through the lens of the idea of ​​"simplification," which has become "the" ultimate solution in Brussels, seems completely crazy.

From the outset, professionals have tried to make it clear that the RIS was not well-conceived, particularly because it was based on the premise that nothing had been done to support it, that the current system had led to serious disruption, when it should have simply been a matter of optimization.

However, the RIS is not officially buried. We cannot yet call it RIP and praise it posthumously.

However, there is now talk of proposing a text called the "Savings Investment Union (SIU)," for which consultations are beginning.

From what we understand from what has been submitted to us in recent weeks, the ambition is to centralize, unify, and standardize. However, there is concern, given that it is explained to us that simplification will be necessary by strengthening constraints and regulations. We'll have to wait and see what we think, even though many of us have already worked dozens of hours onto this "pre" project.

The simplification sought very recently by the EU, and let’s hope it, not too late, nor too timid or conceptual, will also address all texts relating to ESG, which were to structure the entire future and the entire economy of the EU.

The initial announcements were harsh, including for those of our citizens who disagreed with the poorly designed texts, which were cumbersome in their implementation, and which could only lead to degrowth.

The simplification of ESG could be summed up in a dozen reforms to the texts.

Some of the simplifications are obviously necessary, such as limiting the constraints on VSEs ans SMEs, which are incapable of tracking and applying 120 CSR criteria.

However, we have never called for everything to be thrown out and for a total and absolute ban on reporting data to companies, which will then be required to report on their compliance with these criteria. This would lead to a mechanical blockage at the fund level and ultimately to a limited range of offers for investors/savers, which would make it impossible to even imagine reaching 50% of the initial objective.

We want reasonable and proportionate CSR, simpler questionnaires that customers agree to complete, and products or offers whose presentation is compatible with the customer profile. Is it really that complicated to understand?

Simplicity isn't "all or nothing." The professionals and entrepreneurs in our Union have asked for "reason," for not being too cumbersome, and for not aiming for 100% ESG for everyone, everywhere.

This is very different, and it is to be hoped that we will be heard, and that this reflection will not be managed by just another Théodule committee made up of people who are not representative of those who will have to implement it. We are available both as representatives of the companies that will have to "place" and "advise" the investment vehicles, and simply as representatives of companies.

There are two areas of our profession that are not getting simpler: the fight against money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and fraud, and the rules relating to the integration of technology and data exchange.

As soon as we delve into the philosophy, law, and technology of these two areas, it is true that simplifying without increasing risk does not appear as easy as in other cases.

However, we should seriously consider the possible options, because even the technology that was supposed to solve everything is becoming a source of complication in the EU, while elsewhere it is achieving its objective.

The EU is today the most complicated union in the world for its businesses and citizens. Who would dare say that in other major nations or groups there are no laws and regulations?

The result is that we have fallen behind all the other major blocs. It is time to listen to the companies and firms that finance everything and make everything possible and now that simplification is no longer a taboo, to get something effective out of it, without excessive deregulation.