Afghanistan: Finance and Banking

The European Commission's proposal to revise the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation is entering a critical legislative phase, with the Council having adopted its negotiating position and the European Parliament expected to follow suit. As trilogue negotiations approach, financial market participants face a pivotal moment to understand how SFDR 2.0 will reshape disclosure requirements and what steps they must take to prepare for compliance.

The EU's financial services simplification agenda represents more than regulatory recalibration—it embodies a compound acknowledgement of structural limitations by regulators, regulated firms, and a political economy that can no longer equate regulatory volume with effectiveness. Drawing on regulatory cycle literature and comparative analysis of the EU, US, and UK, this article examines whether enforcement credibility rather than regulatory complexity determines compliance outcomes, and argues that si

European independence requires financing, agreement on capital deployment, risk allocation and arrangements for when investment, markets or public finances come under pressure. This Client Alert assesses the implications of Commission President von der Leyen's 2026 State of the European Union speech for financial services, examining how banking competitiveness, market integration, industrial capacity, climate resilience and economic security converge into a single policy programme.