Changes from plenary report to adopted text

61. Calls for targeted support at EU level to ensure that research results reach the market more effectively, especially in Member States with weaker innovation ecosystems; underlines the importance of connecting research institutions with start-ups and industry;

62. Supports investor exits from private companies by promoting mechanisms such as multilateral intermittent trading of privately held shares, thereby improving liquidity and transparency, and enabling early-stage investors to realise returns; considers that such mechanisms should be designed specifically to facilitate cross-border trading across EU Member States while preserving shareholder rights, especially for minority shareholders;

63. Calls on the Commission to prioritise an ambitious savings and investments union agenda that incentivises private investment, sustains financial stability and consumer protection, favours access to venture capital and equity investment to enable SMEs to benefit from greater market integration, ensures access to markets for retail investors, boosts financial literacy, and reduces over-reliance on and complements bank lending, while also providing incentives for sustainable activities;

64. Believes that increasing financial awareness and trust is essential to create a successful CMU and mobilise private investments; notes with concern that financial literacy remains low across the Union, with only 18 % of EU citizens demonstrating a high level of financial literacy; underlines that knowledge levels vary significantly across Members States and demographic groups; calls for a clearer focus on financial literacy, since there is a need to improve EU citizens’ level of understanding of investment products;

65. Considers that increased financial education initiatives should be fostered within the EU to increase citizens’ understanding of the benefits of capital market participation and help individual investors make well-informed investment decisions; welcomes the Commission’s proposal for a new strategy and calls for it to be sufficiently ambitious to significantly improve education levels across Europe, ensuring lasting change; highlights the urgent need to adopt measures to promote more accessible and equitable financial education throughout the EU, respecting national competences; believes that the Commission and Member States should fund initiatives by consumer organisations, individual investor associations and shareholder organisations that promote understanding and foster retail participation in capital markets; urges the Commission to support the development of independent, user-friendly digital tools that could empower citizens to easily compare the various features and characteristics of investment products available on the market;

66. Emphasises that financial education initiatives cannot replace a strong investor protection framework; points out that financial literacy initiatives may be limited in their impact, given the inevitable behavioural limitations and cognitive biases affecting individual investors, and the speed of innovation and sheer complexity of financial markets; believes that initiatives at EU and Member State level to support the standardisation and simplicity of financial products could enhance EU citizens’ understanding of investment products and improve their comparability;

67. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase their focus on digitalisation in the financial services sector in order to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by AI, data sharing and new technology, and to remain competitive internationally;

68. Calls on the Commission to facilitate long-term equity investments by institutional investors, including banks, insurers, pension funds and investment funds;

69. Supports the establishment of a fully fledged European deposit insurance scheme; acknowledges that risk sharing and risk reduction are interlinked;

Making the best use of public resources to close the productivity gap

71. Recalls the importance of fiscal buffers to support public investment; acknowledges, in particular, that under the fiscal rules framework the Member States should maintain, as a minimum, the level of nationally financed public investment for the duration of their national medium-term structural plans, relative to the medium-term level prior to the start of the plan;

72. Notes that the private sector is unlikely to be able to finance the lion’s share of the investment necessary to digitalise and decarbonise the economy without public sector support; believes that the urgency of measures on competitiveness, defence, energy and decarbonisation will require substantial mobilisation of private and public investments, including public-private partnerships where relevant;

73. Points out, however, that public debt levels across the EU are high and fiscal space is limited; stresses, therefore, that any public support measure aimed at mobilising private investments must be well targeted; points out that de-risking initiatives, e.g. via public guarantees, have proven successful in achieving that goal;

74. Stresses that the increased impact and frequency of natural disasters would entail massive costs for public finances; notes that these future costs are currently not taken into account in the debt sustainability analysis;

75. Expects the Commission and Member States to take ambitious and concrete steps to avoid a slump in public investment after 2026, when, with the prospect of a major trade war which might impact the allocation of investments, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the InvestEU Programme are also set to expire; takes note of the RRF’s fundamental flaws, such as not involving regional and local authorities from design to delivery through a place-based and multilevel governance approach; highlights the need to sustain public investments at both national and European level to leverage private investment and finance high-quality public services and infrastructures; believes that this framework, where appropriate, should be strengthened by EU-level investment instruments and tools designed to minimise the cost for EU taxpayers and maximise efficiency in the provision of European public goods, which could also represent a step towards a common safe asset; welcomes, therefore, the proposal on the Omnibus package for InvestEU, which will mobilise a significant amount of additional investment for the remainder of the multiannual financial framework;

76. Points out that there is a need for effective coordination of national fiscal policies in order to maintain sufficient levels of public investment for the EU;

77. Notes that, in order to comply with the EU fiscal framework, EU governments are expected to pursue a restrictive fiscal stance in 2025 which could be at odds with the EU’s investment needs; emphasises that as EU governments struggle with their respective fiscal burdens, EU-wide investment instruments are needed to close the investment gap;

78. Recalls that the NextGenerationEU recovery fund is the largest stimulus package ever funded by the EU to support economic recovery and the green and digital transitions; points out that central questions in relation to refinancing NextGenerationEU still remain unresolved; calls on the Council to adopt new own resources as a matter of urgency in order to enable sustainable repayment of NextGenerationEU borrowing; considers that all instruments and tools should be explored in order to provide the Union with the necessary resources;

79. Notes that issuing a common safe asset could set a benchmark that would facilitate the achievement of the CMU, improve the transmission of monetary policy across the euro, reinforce the international role of the euro and address some of the investment needs identified in the Draghi report; reiterates, in this respect, that joint borrowing through the issuance of EU bonds presents a viable option to ensure that the Union has sufficient resources to respond to acute Union-wide crises such as the ongoing crisis in the area of security and defence; calls on the Commission to advance the discussions on addressing the significant investment gap in the EU identified by the Draghi report, and to present concrete proposals for financing solutions;

80. Welcomes the Commission’s intention to enhance retail investor participation in European financial products in collaboration with the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, the European Stability Mechanism and national promotional banks; recommends that safe assets issued at EU level be incorporated into savings products for workers;

83. Welcomes the EIB Group’s commitment, outlined in its 2024–2027 Strategic Roadmap, to helping advance the CMU by mobilising private capital for productive investments and supporting gains in key EU policy areas, innovation throughout companies’ life cycles, venture capital financing and higher-risk equity financing for start-ups and scale-ups; recalls the duty of the EU’s public bank to support long-term transition projects that have difficulty obtaining funding from the private sector;

84. Stresses the need to simplify, streamline, optimise and consolidate EIB processes and mandates to enhance synergies, effectiveness and efficiency, and to reduce the administrative burden, reporting costs and complexity for companies and projects, which may otherwise be discouraged from seeking financing on account of complex procedures, high compliance costs and regulatory uncertainty;

85. Supports the increased use of higher-risk instruments such as direct and indirect equity and quasi equity financing by the EIB, including through the European Investment Fund, to foster investment in companies and funds, notably via venture capital and venture debt, while underlining that higher-risk instruments must be used with clear risk frameworks and measurable performance indicators;

86. Believes that public support for investment extends beyond access to finance and should also encompass technical assistance, project management, capacity-building, research commercialisation, support for accessing private finance and fostering cooperation between universities and venture capital to drive innovation and competitiveness;

87. Calls on the Commission to propose a Competitiveness Coordination Tool that also supports the identification of European industrial needs, shortages and market opportunities, and to produce relevant recommendations; stresses that it should be linked with the forthcoming Competitiveness Fund to ensure effective solutions to industrial challenges across the Union;

88. Calls on the Commission to place greater emphasis on savings and investments union priorities in the European Semester, ensuring that structural reforms and measures to deepen and integrate EU capital markets are consistently encouraged, monitored and evaluated;

89. Requests that the Commission incorporate specific measures to promote venture capital in the future Competitiveness Fund, the TechEU Programme and any similar initiatives;

90. Recognises the role of competition policy and state aid in supporting the development of European industry; considers, however, that state aid can lead to further fragmentation of the single market;

91. Notes that the Commission will publish a mid-term review of the savings and investments union by Q2 2027;

92. Stresses that Parliament should be adequately involved in implementing the savings and investments union; calls on the Commission to engage in early discussions in the field of CMU and financial services prior to putting forward new proposals and making any adjustments to existing ones;

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93. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.