Uploading, downloading and European integration: Assessing the Europeanisation of UK financial services regulation

Abstract

In its most explicit form Europeanisation is conceptualised as the process of downloading European Union (EU) directives, regulations and institutional structures to the domestic level. This conceptualisation of Europeanisation, however, has been extended in the literature in terms of uploading to the EU, policy transfer, shared beliefs, discourse, identity, indirect impacts, diversity and uniformity, and fit and misfit. There are also problems concerning the difference between Europeanisation and European integration and whether Europeanisation adds anything to the study and analysis of the EU. This paper undertakes a study of banking, investment and insurance directives, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) to deal with conceptualisations of Europeanisation and European integration and assess the impact of these on UK financial services sector regulation.