Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-23-Speech-2-321"
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"en.20030923.11.2-321"2
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".
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his kind words and all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs who worked exceptionally hard on this. In particular I should like to thank Mr Karas and Mr Radwan, Mr Bourlanges, Mr Katiforis, Mr Goebbels, Mrs Cazalet from the committee secretariat and my assistant, Sarah McCarthy, for all the help that they have given me on this very demanding dossier.
Finally, it is vital that we accept the committee's amendments on execution-only business. The Commission proposal needs alteration, otherwise it would drive execution-only business out of business by making it uneconomic. I believe investors should continue if they wish to be able to take their own decisions about their investments. They should not be forced to buy professional advice they neither need nor want. This is unnecessary regulation and I would appeal to MEPs to reject it in the same way as the Committee did.
The goals of the ISD should be competitive, integrated, liquid, transparent and efficient markets with a high level of investor protection. The ISD should not prescribe a particular market structure. It should recognise and be adaptable to the diversity of the different European market structures. It should properly distinguish between retail and professional investors. The type of regulation that is absolutely essential for consumers can be damaging, disruptive and unnecessary if applied to professionals. Rules should always be risk-based, they should be properly costed and they should be proportionate to the harm they seek to avoid.
I very much support the emphasis in the Commission's proposal on country of origin, with a qualification that in many cases and in many areas the host country is suitable to deal with branches. I also agree with the Commission's overall aspiration to abolish concentration rules and open up the business of executing share trades to competition between exchanges, between MTFs and between the internal execution platforms of investment firms. Exchanges are not public utilities and they should not be granted a monopoly. Allowing firms to compete with exchanges will lead to more choice for investors, more liquidity, narrower spreads, better prices and lower costs. The markets where competition is already allowed in this way are successful, transparent and highly liquid. Competition in this context will deliver a good deal for the consumer, as it has in so many other areas. I agree with the Commission that the best way to protect investors is through a strong combination of competition, conduct of business rules, conflict of interest rules, best execution rules and transparency.
However, there are important areas where the compromise agreed in the ECON committee has greatly improved the Commission's proposal. I strongly urge the House to support the ECON Committee's compromise because these amendments are essential to remedy or, at any rate, reduce some very serious problems caused by the Commission's original text. I strongly support the committee amendments and would only advocate a couple of fairly technical changes.
This compromise should be accepted as a package. I would appeal to the House not to seek to destabilise this carefully-balanced and hard-won compromise that was achieved after many meetings, with input from different MEPs from different political groups and of different nationalities. Indeed, at the very heart of the matter, the concept of standard market size was a concept contributed to the debate by the PSE group.
I genuinely believe that the ECON compromise would be good for all Member States. There are many people in my country who would say that the compromise does not go far enough to meet their concerns. I would have liked to delete Article 25, but I have conceded that it is not feasible or appropriate, and I have conceded the need for a pre-trade transparency requirement. I believe this compromise will be good for the national interests of Luxembourg, France, Italy, the UK and indeed all Member States. I believe it will be good for consumers.
I have had to make concessions, I have moved a long way from my initial position and I would very strongly thank everyone in the committee and in the House who have also made concessions. I can support some of the plenary amendments: 145, 148, 151, 156 and 157, and I will be delighted to continue discussing the other plenary amendments.
We had a very serious debate in committee on the word non-professional: a whole range of interest groups from around Europe said they could accept the compromise if non-professional was deleted; now it has been. It is now a balanced compromise which allows a significant pre-trade transparency requirement to go ahead whilst at the same time addressing some of the practical problems with the original proposal - as Mr Bolkestein says, 'in a pragmatic way'.
The original Article 25 would have severely damaged liquidity and liquidity is vital for the health of our markets and our economy. This compromise seeks to deal with those practical problems, and reduce any damage that may occur to liquidity, by exempting the small banks and focusing on systematic internalisers, and by reducing counter-party risk. It allows price improvement: without price improvement the compromise is not workable. Only with price improvement will retail customers get the good prices they deserve. The obligation to give the same price to everyone will make internalisation uneconomic. Why should we who are charged with representing the peoples of Europe pass a law to prevent firms from giving good deals to their customers?"@en1
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