At the intertwinement of materialising a ‘Capital Markets Union’ and implementing its ‘Green Deal’ financing transition rhetoric aspirations, the European Union had made of transparency in corporate disclosure a central aim in its policy objectives under the umbrella of sustainable finance. In formulating its position, the European Commission was supported to a great extent by its expertiseseeking actions, mandating a strengthening of a voluntary disclosure to a non-financial information disclosure and even more recently to a sustainability reporting regime, with comprehensive requirements especially touching upon the financial sector. By strongly holding onto the ‘reins’ of ambitious Action Plans, as well as prioritising the importance of the financial sector in the fight against climate change mainstreamed by international organisations in the financial world, the Commission had given a spotlight to a better integration of climate-related disclosure while supported by the European Supervisory Authorities to deal with the technicalities of disclosure requirements for its financial sector actors with ‘the utmost care’. In this thesis, I question why accountability and transparency in the financial market of the European Union is important for climate change and sustainability. Arguments I bring, supported by the theoretical insights and research design, show that (1) ensuring the public accountability of financial market actors in the European Union on climate change and sustainability is a stepping stone in the broader agenda of the ‘sustainable capital market’ not leaving the agenda of the Commission. Adding to this, another important point I bring is that as (2) transparency is a pre-requisite for public accountability, the framing of regulatory provisions covering climate-related disclosure, in the implementation of the sustainable finance framework, is essential to demonstrate the integration of sustainability at the level of European Commission and the three European supervisory authorities for financial market actors. To provide evidence to these two hypotheses, I employ the use of three research pillars involving expert interviews and document analysis on a variety of sources ranging from positions taken by financial market actors’ business associations to legal texts at the basis of the disclosure regime. At the end, several practical implications targeting the Commission’s regulatory approach to the topic and future research directions are derived.     «

At the intertwinement of materialising a ‘Capital Markets Union’ and implementing its ‘Green Deal’ financing transition rhetoric aspirations, the European Union had made of transparency in corporate disclosure a central aim in its policy objectives under the umbrella of sustainable finance. In formulating its position, the European Commission was supported to a great extent by its expertiseseeking actions, mandating a strengthening of a voluntary disclosure to a non-financial information...     »