Ursula von der Leyen wants to put Europe’s ‘lazy’ savings to work

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stood before a crowd of business leaders in Paris on August 27 and told them, essentially, that European savers are sitting on a pile of money that could be doing a lot more heavy lifting. The pile in question: roughly €10 trillion in household savings parked in bank deposits across the EU. Von der Leyen called them “lazy.” The savings, not the households. What she’s actually proposing The speech, delivered at the Medef business event, was a push to accelerate the Savings and Investments Union, an initiative the Commission first introduced in March 2025. The SIU’s goal is to channel dormant European savings into productive investment, targeting areas like enterprise competitiveness, defense, and the green transition. The numbers framing the urgency come from the September 2024 Draghi report, which identified an annual funding gap for EU innovation and security of between €750 billion and €800 billion. About 70% of EU household financial wealth currently sits in bank deposits. A substantial portion of whatever does get invested flows outside Europe entirely, often into US equities and bonds. The SIU framework, if fully realized, cou...