Europe has a problem with its capital markets. They are too shallow, too few citizens participate in them, and therefore growth capital is not reaching European businesses at the scale required.

In 2021, only around 17% of EU household assets were held in financial securities, compared with 43% in the US.[1] The gap matters both for households seeking to build wealth over the long term and for European businesses that need deeper pools of capital to grow and innovate.

We can see the effect in the fact that Europe has struggled to grow large global companies. Innovative businesses often turn to the United States for the deeper pools of capital needed to scale.

Yet Europe does not lack savings; it just fails to put them to…