The policy narratives of European capital markets union

This paper examines the ‘making’ of Capital Markets Union (CMU) through the
theoretical lens of ‘actor-centred constructivism’, by considering the ‘policy
narratives’ that bureaucratic actors have employed strategically to promote
the project. It is argued that two main narratives were articulated by the
European Commission in order to mobilize the political support necessary to
push forward CMU and reduce potential opposition to it. The first narrative
was to boost the size and internal and external competitiveness of European
Union capital markets. The second narrative was the increased funding to the
real economy, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and
infrastructural projects. The Commission used these narratives instrumentally
in ‘framing’ CMU as a positive-sum game, rather than a zero-sum game with
potential winners and losers.