The battle over strengthening ESMA shows how the interests of national authorities continue to hold back the integration of European financial markets. Between powers to be defended and stock exchanges excluded from common supervision, Europe remains fragmented, whilst companies struggle to grow (and shift capital to Wall Street).

“We’d been working on it for four months,” says the Minister for the Economy regarding the appointment (first reported by *Il Foglio*) of the Italian to the European Securities and Markets Authority