European Commission publishes Green Paper on Capital Markets Union

The European Commission has published its Green Paper on “Building a Capital Markets Union” with a deadline for consultation responses of 13th May 2015.

The main areas that the Green Paper seeks to address are:

• improving access to financing for all businesses across Europe and investment projects, in particular start-ups, SMEs and long-term projects;
• increasing and diversifying the sources of funding from investors in the EU and all over the world; and
• making the markets work more effectively so that the connections between investors and those who need funding are more efficient and effective, both within Member States and cross-border.

N.B. References to crowdfunding include in Section 4.1 “Improving Access to Finance” and Section 4.3 “Improving market effectiveness – intermediaries, infrastructures and the broader legal framework”

The full Green Paper can be downloaded at: http://ec.europa.eu/finance/consultations/2015/capital-markets-union/index_en.htm