French Watchdog Ready to Cede Powers to Advance European Market

A top French financial watchdog said she’s willing to transfer some powers to a European Union regulator to help develop the region’s notoriously fragmented capital markets.

“We are fully ready to relinquish some of our national powers and transfer them to ESMA,” Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani, chair of the Autorite des Marches Financiers, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “Regulators or supervisors don’t create markets, but having a fragmented supervision for markets in the EU is certainly not helping.”

The comments come as the European Commission is set to publish a plan on Wednesday for deepening integration of ...