Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reignited a debate with his call for a joint European stock exchange – a discussion that Euronext CEO Stéphane Boujnah has long been eager to pursue. While Deutsche Börse has focused its expansion strategy on adjacent services – such as the acquisition of proxy advisor ISS – the French have assembled an attractive portfolio of European exchanges: Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo and Paris are already part of Euronext, with an offer for the Athens Stock Exchange currently on the table.

If Europe is ever to have a single stock exchange, it is most likely to be Euronext. The French would benefit most from harmonised regulation, which would enable them to unlock far greater synergies. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Boujnah quickly expressed enthusiasm, saying that „Euronext stands ready to contribute to the next level of European consolidation.“ In contrast, competitors in Frankfurt and Stuttgart reacted far more cautiously.

The Chancellor’s diagnosis missed the mark slightly. What Europe needs is not a dominant exchange operator, but uniform rules and standards for its capital markets. Today, reporting requirements for listed companies still vary from country to country across the EU. In the United States, many may criticise the politicisation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but at least there is one single authority setting the rules.

Meanwhile, competition among US exchange operators is even increasing: the SEC recently approved the Texas Stock Exchange as a new securities exchange. There’s clearly still room for an additional trading venue alongside the heavyweights Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

What the European capital market needs above all is defragmentation of supervision and regulation. The number of exchange operators should be determined by the market, not by politics. If Merz truly wants to strengthen the equity market, there is a far more powerful lever available: expanding funded pension schemes. That could mobilise enormous sums of capital – as Sweden, the IPO champion of Europe, has already shown.