The role of the European Union equivalence regime in global capital markets

This thesis examines the European Union equivalence regime as a legal instrument and governance technique within the wider transformation of post-crisis international financial regulation. It argues that equivalence is not merely a technical market access mechanism, but a structured form of conditional reliance through which the European Union seeks to reconcile openness to cross-border finance with prudential control and regulatory projection. The thesis argues that equivalence remains embedded in international technocratic governance, since its practical operation depends on shared standards, regulatory comparability, and repeated interaction within transnational networks. Within the EU legal order, the thesis demonstrates that equivalence is shaped by financial stability and by the logic of regulatory centralisation. Its design and operation vary across sectors according to differing assessments of risk, dependence, and prudential sensitivity,and equivalence contributes to the centralisation of supervisory authority at EU level, particularly through European Securities and Markets Authority. Externally, it argues that the Union's practice is shaped by financial stability and regulatory power projection, whose varying combinations generate integrationist, defensive, and negotiationist models. The China and Hong Kong case study further shows that equivalence may also operate through spatially mediated forms of regulatory connection. Overall, equivalence emerges as a differentiated mechanism for governing interdependence and promoting regulatory convergence after crisis.