Is a European approach to financial regulation emerging from the crisis?

A decade before the financial crisis of the late-2000s, European Union policymakers2 launched a financial regulatory overhaul. From an international perspective, the main result was “power without purpose” (Posner 2009; Posner and Véron 2010): new EU capacities to shape international regulation, but a regional approach based on principles similar to the US ones. Rather than use their bargaining leverage to offer an alternative to the US normative framework, EU representatives merely sought (and won) more favorable terms of cross-border access for Europe-based firms. Facing the greatest crisis since the 1930s, EU policymakers are once again revisiting legislation, rule-making procedures and supervisory arrangements. Are they developing a new approach to regulating finance? If so, what are the contours of the approach, how does it compare to developments in other parts of the world, how will it affect the EU’s international agenda, and what accounts for the changes?