In the past five years, Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee has worked on an unprecedented amount of financial services legislation on hugely complex topics.
In contrast to the financial services action plan 10 years ago, there was no road map for this flurry of regulation. Instead, it was broadly reactive and responding to the financial crisis with regulation at an EU level.
This is why we must now look back at the work that was previously done and see where there are gaps in the 50 or so pieces of legislation that were passed, problems with dual or disproportionate regulation or opportunities to go further in completing the single market.
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The goal of the financial services action plan has often been lost in the hurry to regulate. The regulation has prioritised a broad goal of financial stability while letting the aim of creating a single market fall by the wayside, even in some cases erecting new barriers that did not previously exist.
For example, the alternative investment fund managers directive that now regulates hedge funds at an EU level did not put in place a solid, workable framework for cross border marketing of funds, or an EU wide passport for third country investors to invest across Europe.
The whole purpose of an EU framework should mean that a hedge fund based in Italy can be invested in by mutual funds in London, as it will be operating under the same rules. Allowing member states to put up barriers to this, by charging higher fees to non-domestic hedge funds, makes a mockery of having an EU framework.
In the rush to regulate, issues such as the capital treatment of infrastructure were not given special status over other kinds of investment, which in the light of political objectives around the European financial and strategic investment fund clearly need to be revised.
I consider it a huge priority to look at how in an effort to avoid loopholes in regulation, we have introduced huge administrative burden to non-financial companies in Europe.
Complex thresholds and tests in European market infrastructure regulation and the markets in financial instruments directive will only penalise those companies that then have to pay expensive lawyers to prove that they are not banks masquerading as oil companies.
The regulation was not supposed to target these companies and we should now be open to relieving them of this burden.
Beyond this, we need to look at how to refine regulation on topics like banking and post trade infrastructure to see how they fit into the digital agenda. There are amazing new innovations taking place in the sphere of FinTech that could revolutionise how we reduce risk in the financial system.
We need to find a way to encourage such innovations within the existing framework of legislation through adaption, or repeal while retaining high levels of investor protection.
The capital markets union is the flagship project for achieving all of this. Ultimately if we can make it as easy to invest and raise funds in Prague and Tallinn as it already is in London and Frankfurt, we will be creating a true single market that will be attractive to investors globally.
We will be making it easier for European companies to innovate and grow here in Europe to provide the future global market leaders.