The Dublin European Law Institute (DELI) at Dublin City University hosted Savings and Investments Union and the EU Competitiveness Agenda on 23 September 2026, an official associated event of Ireland’s 2026 Presidency of the Council of the European Union held within the framework of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence COMPETE. The event was generously sponsored by McCann FitzGerald LLP and the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI).

The keynote address was delivered by Prof Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy, President of the Jacques Delors Institute and author of the 2024 report Much More Than a Market, which first set out the idea of a Savings and Investments Union (SIU). Following the event, Prof Letta was conferred with an honorary doctorate by Dublin City University in a ceremony at The Helix, in recognition of his contribution to European integration.

The event opened with welcome and introductory remarks from Dr Gëzim Visoka, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at DCU.

In his keynote, Turning Europe’s Savings into Europe’s Future, Prof Letta set out what he described as Europe’s central paradox: a large economy with a small capital market. Europe, he argued, “saves like a superpower, and invests like a collection of national markets.” EU households hold some €39 trillion in financial assets, yet the EU accounts for just 11% of global equity market capitalisation, against 60% for the United States, and around €300 billion of European savings flow out of the EU every year, mostly into US markets.

Prof Letta traced the SIU from its origins in his April 2024 report, where the shift in name from Capital Markets Union was a deliberate political choice to put savers and citizens, rather than intermediaries, at the centre of the project. He outlined the path from diagnosis to political commitment: the Commission’s SIU strategy in March 2025, the Alden Biesen leaders’ retreat in February 2026, where he presented the SIU as the first pillar for completing the Single Market, and the adoption in April 2026 of the joint One Europe, One Market Roadmap by the Parliament, Council and Commission, comprising 42 measures to be agreed by the end of 2027.

Turning to the state of play, Prof Letta reviewed the key SIU files now in negotiation, including the Market Integration and Supervision Package, the securitisation framework, EU Inc. (the so-called 28th regime), the supplementary pensions package and the digital euro. Many of these carry end-2026 targets, placing the Irish Presidency at the centre of the process. The Presidency has made the SIU one of its top priorities and the supervision package its main financial dossier.

On supervision, Prof Letta argued that a single rulebook does not make a single market if it is applied in 27 different ways. Acknowledging the Council’s preference for a gradual approach, he stated: “Gradual is acceptable; reversible is not,” adding that while the landing zone could be pragmatic, the direction must be unambiguous: European markets need European supervision.

Prof Letta also stressed that integration must not become concentration. The savings of a family in Cork or in Tuscany, he said, should help finance a European future, including in their own region. He identified three conditions for an SIU that works for every citizen: simple and protective products for retail savers, access to market finance for SMEs and regions, and financial literacy as a European public good. He closed by looking ahead to the “next hundred days”, from the October ECOFIN in Luxembourg to the end of the Irish Presidency in December, with a final message: “There is no time left.”

The keynote was followed by a high-level policy roundtable moderated by Dr Niall Moran, Assistant Professor of Economic Law at DCU. The panel brought together Prof Bruno de Witte, Professor of EU Law at Maastricht University; Ms Clare Gillett, Partner at McCann FitzGerald LLP; Mr Brian Hayes, Chief Executive of BPFI; and Dr Christy Ann Petit, Assistant Professor of EU Banking and Finance Law at DCU.