Noting the failure of the pan-European individual retirement savings product (PEPP), launched in 2022, without ever really taking off, France is now advocating another method for mobilizing the savings of Europeans, in order to meet financing needs “massive” years to come. This is one of the proposals of the mission chaired by Christian Noyer, former governor of the Banque de France, from 2003 to 2015, mandated in January by the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and which delivered its conclusions , Thursday April 25.
The stakes are high, since financing the ecological transition, the digital transition and new needs linked, among others, to defense could mobilize nearly 1,000 billion additional euros each year, by 2030 , explains the mission. On April 18, the European Union (EU) therefore set itself the short-term objective of relaunching the implementation of a European savings product within the framework of a “savings union and investment”.
Rather than a unified product like the PEPP, handicapped by tax and tariff disparities between EU member countries, Mr. Noyer therefore suggests a common label “which member states could take advantage of”either by creating new savings products or by adapting certain existing products.
A series of criteria
To benefit from this label, the products concerned should respect a series of criteria, including a long-term investment horizon, a “arrow” towards European financial assets of 80% or more and taxation “attractive”. A sketch to which the retirement savings plan (PER) in France could correspond, while elsewhere, in the EU, “there are countries which do not have this type of product and which will have to invent them”said Mr. Noyer.
It remains to convince the Paris partners to adhere to this approach. But France shows its confidence on the subject: “There is very strong interest from a certain number of Member States in the savings product”, we assure Bercy. The subject could be debated at the next Eurogroup meeting on May 13.
Among the other proposals of the Noyer mission is a relaunch of the securitization market, the transformation of loan portfolios granted by banks into negotiable securities for “free up lending capacity”. This market collapsed in Europe after the great financial crisis of 2008, of which it was one of the detonators in the United States, but Mr. Noyer assures us: “It’s the best tool” to increase the credit capacity of banks. And respond to what he calls the ” underdevelopment “ capital markets in Europe.
