Widen the Market, Narrow the Competition: Banker Interests and the Making of a European Capital Market [Paperback]

Drawing on policy documents and more than fifty in-depth interviews, Widen the Market, Narrow the Competition argues that financial industry interests have been key to this power shift.EU capital markets have changed radically over the past 20 years. In the 1980s, countries had their own financial industries and rules. Now there is one 'Champions League' of banks, and member states have transferred crucial regulatory powers to Brussels. Drawing on policy documents and more than fifty in-depth interviews, Widen the Market, Narrow the Competition argues that financial industry interests have been key to this power shift. Continental banks initially feared a single European market, and governments followed their protectionist impulses. In the 1990s the mood changed, and the likes of ABN AMRO and Deutsche Bank rushed into international investment banking. They emerged as the crucial lobby for the supranational governance in place today. Linked by the interests of centrally placed firms, EU financial integration and supranational governance have been two sides of the same coin. At the same time, national parliaments and ordinary citizens have been pushed to the sidelines.contentsList of Figures and Tables viiiChapter One: Introduction 1Established Approaches and their Limits 3The Argument: Banker Interests in EU Capital Markets 7Chapter Two: Competition Politics and Supranational Integration 13European Integration 13Financial Market Liberalisation and Regulation 18Private and Public Actors in Regulatory Policy 22The Competition Politics Approach 25The Core Features of the Approach 29Chapter Three: The Domestic Roots of Regulatory Reform 31European Capital Markets at the End of the 1980s 32Regulatory Reform in German Managed Capitalism 35Regulatory Reform in French State-led Capitalism 40Regulatory Reform in British Market Capitalism 44European State-market Condominiums in Comparison 49Chapter Four: Negotiating the Single Market 51Financial Services in the Single Market Pló3