Why competitiveness shouldn’t be a secondary mandate for supervisors

Europe needs a more competitive financial system. Yet assigning supervisors a secondary competitiveness objective is the wrong path for getting there. Competitiveness should be advanced through stronger lawmaking, clearer and more proportionate rules, deeper market integration and better institutional design, rather than by muddying what supervision is meant to do.

The danger isn’t just conceptual. It’s that supervisors get pulled into political and industry pressures precisely where clarity, independence and discipline matter most.

Apostolos Thomadakis is Head of Research at ECMI, and Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Financial Markets and Institutions Unit at CEPS.