Manager of financial Globalization?: The European Union in global anti-money laundering and international accounting standard setting

Abstract

How does the European Union (EU) perform in international financial regulation? According to various scholars the global financial architecture has been shaped by the USA and the EU. But whereas the USA is without doubt the dominant actor or even described as hegemon in writing the rules for the global political economy and global financial markets, the EU seems to be a special kind of actor. The European Union is not only one of the biggest single financial markets in the world but also has become one of the largest financial jurisdictions in the last decade. Despite this huge market size the EU’s representation in institutions of the global financial regulation is quite low. Hence the direct EU impact on global financial regulation is often seen as weak or the EU is perceived rather as a forum than an actor. Given the debate on the external actorness of the EU global financial regulation is an interesting case for evaluating the EU’s actorness in fields, where the EU has competences like anti-money laundering and setting accounting standards. In the paper I applied the managed globalization doctrine in order to analyze the EU’s performance in those fields. The evidence illustrates that even in the fields, where the EU have regulatory competencies, the European Union is not able or willing to shape the global regulation.