Overview
- Ana Botín argued that excessive and fragmented EU rules are weighing on competitiveness, citing an estimated 95,000 pages of banking regulation.
- She contrasted roughly 13,000 new European rules in six years with about 3,500 in the United States and said simplification does not mean deregulation.
- Botín urged a new growth architecture built on a single market for services, simpler rules, and broad adoption of AI to raise productivity and attract capital.
- Bank of Spain governor José Luis Escrivá backed streamlining and promoted a “régimen 28” to create a single EU regulatory model, warning against an overly dense body of norms.
- Botín said Spanish mortgage offers sit about 50 basis points below the 10‑year sovereign yield as evidence of domestic competition, and both interventions were made at Santander’s annual international banking conference with no policy changes announced.