We responded to the European Commission's public consultation on the Capital Markets Union mid-term review 2017.
We noted our support for the Capital Markets Union project. We commented that SMEs are the engine for economic growth and jobs. Access to finance for these companies is vital for stimulating and maintaining economic growth, sustainable employment opportunities and creating prosperity across Europe.
We commented that the development of SME Growth Markets is essential in ensuring that SMEs can access capital markets in the EU. We encouraged that Commission to ensure that any new measures allow SME Growth Markets to operate flexibly, taking into account differing market models in EU Member States.
We noted that although improvements have been made on the Prospectus Regime such as creating higher thresholds and accepting the summary to be read as the introduction, the final Prospectus Regulation text has arguably fallen short of the original intentions to make a truly positive change to the Prospectus Regime.
We urged the Commission to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to reviewing SMEs’ access to public equity finance, so that any regulatory changes are meaningful for smaller growth companies.
