European Financial Integration: Finally the Great Leap Forward?

Abstract: The recent history of financial integration in Europe can generally be considered a success story, notwithstanding the crisis that has plagued financial sectors in Europe and elsewhere since 2007. There has been significant progress in the area of regulatory integration; however, an in-depth analysis requires also taking into account what happens on the ground - that is, at the market level. As a consequence of this larger and more interactive point of view, this article shows that financial integration is less uniform than a cursory look at the evolution of European Union regulation would have us believe. This is because national contexts continue to bear considerable weight. In particular, any explanation of the current state of affairs in the EU's financial integration needs to take the market-regulation nexus seriously. This implies looking at market structure as well as at the political and institutional context. This article suggest a framework to explain more adequately the contradictions between regulatory and market integration.