Bankers have called into question the urgency of harmonising listing requirements across Europe. Even as the European Commission tries to hammer out the details of the proposal by Frits Bolkestein, the internal markets commissioner, to simplify cross-border equity issues, financiers are talking down its importance.

The idea of the proposal is to ease the process of offering shares to retail investors in a number of European companies by allowing companies to use one prospectus, rather than producing a different document in each country.