An agreement was finally achieved for the approval of the new European Commission by the Parliament in Brussels, and thus Stéphane Séjourné, the newly appointed Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy is going to start working the first week of this coming December.

Mr. Séjourné is not new in politics. He has served as personal adviser to French President Macron from 2017-2019, Secretary-General of President Macron’s Renaissance Party from 2022 to the present, has been an MEP, and was elected a member of the French National Assembly and subsequent appointed as French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs. When each Member State of the EU was called to nominate a Commissioner, the President of France presented his candidature with confidence for his confirmation.

But what is the new Commissioner’s plan for the Single Market? The best way to find out is of course to follow the decisions he is going to make in the coming months and years, but his answers to the European parliamentarians give us already a good idea:

In regards to the Capital Markets Union (CMU), Mr Séjourné has expressed concern for:

  • the lack of investment of savings;
  • the lack of sufficient access to risk capital so innovative firms can grow and expand within the EU;
  • the fragmented nature of EU capital markets which inhibits international competition and the benefits of the Single Market
  • differences in supervision of financial market operators that increase costs of doing business across Member States

Mr Séjourné proposed that ‘soundly structured, well-regulated and supervised, securitisation can play a positive role for the economy as a tool for attracting new investors, and as a risk management tool transferring credit risk from banks to a broad set of EU and third country institutional investors, who would benefit from greater diversification of exposures. This can enable banks to provide more financing to the real economy.’ Beyond this however, he didn’t say much on how he would plan to push through these changes.

Of importance was his commitment to de-risk investments in innovation and in funding start-ups through the role that the European Investment Bank can play in sustaining clean-tech firms; this would be augmented by the implementation of reforms of public procurement rules, promising that consultations would be launched to achieve the goal that ‘quality jobs’ should be created. Trillions of euros are intended for this with EU public administrators already mobilising around 14% of the bloc’s GDP, which would significantly boost the Union’s industrial capacity (especially its manufacturing sector) after suffering from intense global competition over the last ten years. Of note were the sectors, Séjourné thought to be strategic: steel, aluminium and chemicals. These, he believes, can be protected under the new rules.

Let’s stay tuned for the real actions!