EU Discord Over Capital Markets Weighs On Top-Level Summit

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

EU leaders are convening today to discuss creating a capital markets union to mobilize private investment within the bloc. Yet an attempt by France and Germany to inject more ambition into the plan, which was agreed to by finance ministers last month, has been contested by nearly a dozen countries. Some diplomats suspect that France wants to centralize supervision in the Paris-based EU markets authority and turn the French capital into a financial hub. For summit chair Charles Michel and finance ministers to deliver, the bloc needs a breakthrough, a senior EU official told us. A report drafted for the summit by former Italian premier Enrico Letta calls for gradually enhancing the powers of the European Securities and Markets Authority.