Old, Rich and Afraid: Five Ways to Drive Cultural Change and Deliver a Real European Investment Union

The Savings and Investment Union (SIU) is the right idea at the right time, but it’s already mired in national political opposition. At a policymaking level, SIU remains focussed on technical and supervisory integration. Unfortunately, this approach ignores the most fundamental characteristic of Continental European societies – a deep aversion to risk which is embedded in household behaviour. Yet, tackling this issue is essential to completing a meaningful investment union. But it requires more than a technical or legislative solution. It requires cultural change.

Europe possesses capital in extraordinary abundance — over €10 trillion sits in low-yield bank deposits alone with an annual savings rate approximately three times greater than the US. Italian households and businesses alone save 400 billion euros annually. Culture, not capital, is the problem.

European households, shaped by historical trauma, large welfare states and inert political systems, have developed a deep aversion to productive investment. Until this is confronted directly SIU will always remain less than the sum of its potential parts.

Drawing on relevant research from economics, behavioural finance, sociology and psychology this brief makes five proposals designed to shift the default settings of European households’ financial behaviour. None requires European households to become “American”. But they do require a political and institutional shift that challenge accepted European norms.

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