Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-27-Speech-3-143"
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"en.20050427.12.3-143"2
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".
Mr President, as I indicated earlier, this report marks the start of a new era in financial services. I thank Mrs van den Burg for her very stimulating report and the considerable effort that has gone into producing it.
Members raised other points, which I hope will be taken up in the time ahead.
In conclusion, I refer to what I said earlier: there is a considerable degree of convergence between the thinking in the European Parliament, the Council, industry, consumers and the Commission. I am convinced the coming five years will be extremely challenging. As the foundations for good collaboration between the institutions have been laid, I am sure we will be successful.
Based on this report and our consultation with other stakeholders, next week, on 3 May, I intend to present to the College of Commissioners a Green Paper on financial services policy for the next five years. I will present this paper to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in more detail on 9 May. The Commission’s Green Paper will be open for public consultation until 1 August. Our final policy conclusions, deriving from all this work, are planned for the end of this year.
A number of issues were raised and I will try to respond to some of them. Mrs van den Burg and Mrs Kauppi referred to the ‘Himalaya’ report. The Commission thinks integration needs to be accompanied by matching supervisory structures: the more integrated the markets, the more integrated and convergent the supervisory structures must also be. For the time being, I consider the Lamfalussy structures to be sufficient, but they need to be closely and continuously monitored and adapted, or further developed if needed. Only after careful assessment might future initiatives be necessary, with strict application of the subsidiarity principle.
A number of speakers, including Mrs van den Burg and Mrs Kauppi, mentioned the so-called 26th regime. That regime may sound attractive in its simplicity, but in practice it will require some degree of harmonisation across the board, whether legal or in terms of tax, language, etc. The benefits of those 26th regime schemes remain to be proven, and reaching an agreement on optional European standards designed for only certain products will be difficult. However, I take note of the current debate and will respond to the call to explore such 26th regime schemes further, as explicitly expressed in the van den Burg report.
Both Mrs van den Burg and Mrs Berès mentioned retail markets. We agree that there are important barriers to integration of retail financial services markets. The integration of retail markets is complex and demanding. However, this should not be the conclusion but our starting point. Product characteristics, distribution systems, consumer protection, contract law, differences in consumption, culture or other economic or structural realities play a prominent role in the retail area and create considerable complexity for cross-border supply and demand. These barriers, however, have their origin in the fragmentation of the European market for historic reasons. The Commission does not accept the argument that, as European integration increases, this fragmentation is there to stay. In ten years from now, the retail market will look completely different to the market of today. Our role is to anticipate and facilitate this development and not shy away from new initiatives.
Mr Purvis and Mrs Berès raised the question of asset management. We will look to act only after the issues have been identified and potential solutions found. Where objectives can be achieved by non-legislative action, we will obviously choose this route. We might also need to address this question of legislative changes if they present the only way to secure single market freedoms in the area of investment funds.
Mr Radwan raised a number of issues, including one on the standards issued on clearing and settlement. I must point out that the Commission is not bound in any way by the ESCB CESR standards, and any policy decisions which might be enshrined in a
future directive on clearing and settlement will take precedence over the ESCB CESR standards.
Mr Radwan also raised the question of the democratic governance and political accountability of rule-setters. Last week I was in the United States. You will note that we are working hard to influence the reform process under way within the International Accounting Standards Board. We are looking carefully at the arrangements proposed for the International Accounting and Auditing Standards Board, which will elaborate national standards and auditing. During that recent visit to the United States, we made good progress in some of these areas.
Mr Wohlin raised the question of the new framework for capital requirements. They offer a range of approaches. For those banks moving to the simplest approaches, the changes from the existing standards of Basel I are not huge, so the costs of implementation are reasonably small. Banks moving to more sophisticated approaches will have to spend more, but they will do so only if this is a sensible business decision and the benefits will outweigh the costs."@en1
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