Brussels presents an action plan to better use the abundant savings of Europeans

This savings amounts to 35,500 billion euros, sums that could make it possible to energize growth or support business investment. The European Commission proposes the creation of a “savings and investment account”.

In total, there are more than 6,000 billion euros in savings placed by the French, between life insurance, tax-free booklets and the stock market. We even reach 35,500 billion euros for all Europeans. Colossal sums that Europe would like, in October, see used to energize growth, to ensure that all this money continues to relate to savers, as modest as they are, without sleeping on bank accounts. The objective is also to support companies’ investment in the face of the offensive of American industrial giants.

The European Commission proposes the creation of a “savings and investment account” offering tax advantages to encourage Europeans to place their money usefully, without losing changes or taking financial risks. An idea that may seem attractive at a time when the remuneration of certain products, the booklet of which has melted as snow in the sun with the drop in interest rates, and citizens place their money as a precaution and not proactively.

It is not a question of implementing binding measures coming from above. The European Commission intends to leave freedom in the Member States to build their own savings account draft and fix the tax incentives according to the budgetary situation of each: tax reports, tax deductions, establishment of fixed rate … Everything must be done to encourage savers to redirect their investments in favor of investment in companies. The Commission is careful not to determine specific sectors such as defense or the military industry that one might think with geopolitical tensions. The stake is elsewhere. We must finance in particular the energy transition and artificial intelligence to compete with the Google, Microsoft, etc.

Everyone will have access to these placements, even the most modest, that is the objective. In France, more than 55 million people today have a very popular savings. The new European savings and investment account will allow interested persons to invest from only ten euros in shares or funds, on attractive tax conditions. And to secure the whole against any speculative drifts, Brussels excludes products deemed “highly risky and complex “like cryptocurrencies. Out of the question of falling into the Casino effect.