Milan: Europe is once again trying to solve a problem it has wrestled with for a decade: how to channel its vast pool of household savings into investment that stays on the continent. The push to build a Savings and Investments Union, the successor to the long-stalled Capital Markets Union, has gained fresh momentum, with the bloc’s six largest economies pressing for concrete steps to knit together fragmented national markets. The stakes are large. Europeans save prodigiously, but much of that money sits in low-yielding bank deposits or flows across the Atlantic to deeper, more liquid American markets, where it finances companies that then outcompete European rivals. The Savings and Investments Union aims to reverse that drain, giving citizens better returns on long-term savings while supplying European firms with the capital they need to scale. The diagnosis is widely shared; the cure has proved elusive. The core obstacle is fragmentation. Capital markets remain governed largely by national rules, leaving a patchwork that deters cross-border investment and keeps markets small. Among the proposals from the six largest economies is transferring certain supervisory powers to the European Securities and Markets Authority, creating a stronger central regulator. But that idea runs straight into national governments reluctant to cede sovereignty over their financial sectors, the same reef on which previous efforts foundered. What makes this attempt different is the geopolitical urgency. With Europe needing to finance defence, the green transition and digital infrastructure simultaneously, public budgets alone cannot carry the load. Mobilising private savings has shifted from a technocratic aspiration to a strategic necessity, and that reframing may yet generate the political will that earlier rounds lacked. An ambitious timetable, officials warn, is essential if the project is not to drift again. Sceptics have heard such promises before. The Capital Markets Union was launched with fanfare in 2015 and delivered far less than hoped, precisely because member states guarded their prerogatives. Whether the rebranded Savings and Investments Union fares better depends on whether capitals are finally willing to trade some national control for a genuinely integrated market. The coming months will reveal how serious that willingness is. For savers, the promise is better returns and more choice; for companies, deeper pools of capital; for the bloc, a more resilient financial system less dependent on foreign markets. The vision is compelling and the need is pressing. The hard part, as ever in European finance, is persuading twenty-seven governments to let go.