The Commission adopted the first CMU action plan in 2015 (CMU I) which was later updated following a mid-term review in 2017.

The Commission published a new action plan for the CMU in September 2020 (CMU II) which was followed by a status report in November 2021.

The CMU is the EU’s plan to create a single market for capital across the EU. Efforts to put in place a single market for capital started already with the Treaty of Rome, but the objective has not yet been achieved. There is no single measure that will complete the CMU. The only way to progress is to move step by step, in all areas where barriers to the free movement of capital still exist.

The vision is that the CMU will bring value to all Europeans, wherever they live and work, so that citizens of smaller Member States will get the same access to financial services as those who live in larger more established financial centers.

The European Parliament and Member States agreed on 12 out of 13 legislative proposals proposed by the Commission, although not all of them in the exact form proposed by the Commission.

CMU II includes a list of 16 new actions set out to achieve three key objectives:

1. support a green, digital, inclusive and resilient economic recovery by making financing more accessible to European companies,
2. make the EU an even safer place for individuals to save and invest long-term,
3. integrate national capital markets into a genuine single market.

The NSA is engaged in discussions on several of the CMU actions including the assessment of applicable rules on inducements and disclosure, the legal framework for retail investors to receive fair advice and clear and comparable product information, and on how to reduce information overload for experienced retail investors (Action 8) and a proposal to create an effective and comprehensive post-trade consolidated tape for equity and equity-like financial instruments (Action 14).