Focus Group No. 4 - Financial markets

Michael Emerson, Veronika Movchan, Dumitru Pintea, Lali Gogoberidze

In March 2019 we began a series of monthly focus group meetings on key aspects of the Association Agreements and DCFTAs between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Focus group sessions are held in each of the three capitals with a range of stakeholders (government, business, civil society, etc.) using a standardized questionnaire. The focus groups are organised and moderated by our partners in the three capitals: IER in Kyiv, Expert-Grup in Chisinau and Reformatics in Tbilisi.

The objective is to get fresh views on how the Association Agreements and DCFTAs are progressing in practice. This may lead to recommendations to policy makers in the three capitals and the EU institutions.

While the views of individual participants are treated as confidential, reports are published drawing together a synthesis of the findings.

Focus Group No 4 concerned financial markets, took place in June 2019, and was organised around four questions submitted to participants in advance. Written and oral replies to the questions were collected, and are reported on below.

There were between 14 and 21 participants in the three country sessions, consisting of representatives of the central bank and other regulatory authorities, business interests and associations in the financial sector, and think tanks/NGOs.