Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-11-Speech-2-307"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080311.32.2-307"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, the oral question tabled by Ms Berès on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs gives me, on behalf of Mr McCreevy and on behalf of the whole Commission, the opportunity to inform you of the ongoing work on the review of the Lamfalussy process.
By the end of 2008, the Commission has also committed itself to conduct a cross-sectoral stock-taking exercise of the coherence, equivalence and actual use of sanctioning powers among Member States. The Commission should consider – also by the end of 2008 – financial support under the EU budget. And, as I said before, it should study the possibilities for EU funding under the EU budget of the development of tools to help build a common supervisory culture by the level three committees. The Commission and the committees should review financial services directives to include provisions to enable the use of voluntary delegation of tasks, analyse the options for voluntary delegation of competences and so on and so forth. So we are working a lot and we should work a lot in the coming weeks, months and before the end of this year.
But we are working at the same time on the financial turmoil by following the road map that was adopted in October 2007 by Ecofin. A report on how we are working on this road map to tackle the financial turmoil consequences has been sent to the European Council for discussions in a few days in Brussels. We contributed to this report with a communication. The Economic and Financial Committee the other day also presented its own report to Ecofin. We discussed both reports at Ecofin level and these reports are on the table for the discussions of the Heads of State and Government next Thursday and Friday.
These reports convey the simple message: in order to respond to the concerns of our citizens and investors we must act swiftly and in a consistent way. We need to restore confidence and stability as soon as possible, having carefully considered all the options and in line with the better regulation principles.
I think everybody acknowledges that this road map, adopted a few months ago by Ecofin, provides the right answer to the problems identified. Work on these road map commitments is on track. In the months to come it will be crucial to stick to the timetable and show that the EU is responding effectively to the crisis.
Our regulatory and supervisory framework must remain robust and keep pace with market developments. Although the Basle II rules have only been fully implemented as of 1 January 2008 further improvements have already been planned in the capital requirements directive. This work has taken on increased importance in the light of the recent turmoil and maybe there will be other aspects of Basle II that we will need to address in the time ahead. We intend to adopt a new proposal for this directive in October so that discussion in Parliament and the Council can take place before the adoption of a new directive in April 2009.
We appreciate very much the involvement of Parliament in all these discussions. We need Parliament’s contribution and we appreciate this involvement and this contribution. On 1 April – a few days before the next informal Ecofin – Mr McCreevy will go to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. And, as you know, from a macro-financial stability point of view, I, as the Commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, am always ready to contribute to the discussions in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and in this Parliament.
Finally, on macro-financial issues, it is true that we need to improve the supervisory and regulatory framework – it is absolutely true at European level and at a global level – but we will not put an end to these bubbles, this excess of liquidity, this risk to financial stability unless we seriously tackle global imbalances. This is the real origin of these imbalances. We cannot solve the current or previous problems, or perhaps the next challenges to the functioning of the global economy, without tackling the global imbalances that are still there.
Throughout last year, the European supervisory model in the field of financial services was examined at the highest political level. These discussions showed that there is a strong political will to strengthen the current supervisory architecture based on the Lamfalussy committee structure. Last year we saw the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission each submit their assessment of the functioning of the current process. It is now time to move forward and to present concrete proposals.
This stems from the Ecofin Council’s conclusions and the accompanying road map which were adopted last December. This road map sets out what needs to be done to improve the Lamfalussy process and in particular to improve the committees of national supervisory authorities, the so-called ‘level three’ committees.
The Commission’s work is centred on three main areas following this agreement of the road map adopted last December. First, the Commission was requested to consider how to clarify and strengthen the role of the level three committees and to set out concrete options for the informal Ecofin Council next April in Ljubljana.
The main objective here is to bring forth the contribution that the level three committee should make to supervisory cooperation, supervisory convergence and possibly to crisis prevention and management. The informal Ecofin, by the way, will also discuss the work of a taskforce focusing on crisis management on cross border institutions
Second, work is ongoing by a working group of the Commission to review supervisory powers, voluntary delegation of tasks, supervisory cooperation and exchange of information. We are working together with the three level three committees on these tasks to deliver the requested results before the end of the year. Considering the enormous scope of these reviews, it is, however, still too early to indicate today what the outcome of this work will be.
Third, the Commission is looking into the possibility of financially contributing to the activities of the level three committees. This is an urgent problem as these committees in general, and in particular the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR), have reached their budgetary limits. The Commission will be looking for a stable legislative solution which would ensure continuity in EU financing. In our view, this could best be achieved by agreeing the modalities of EU funding in a decision adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.
I have no time to give the Parliament details of the road map adopted last December by Ecofin, but allow me in half a minute just to read some of the commitments that were sent to the Commission. We are working on all of these things. By April 2008 the Commission should prepare an assessment of how to clarify the role of the committees and to consider all the different options towards strengthening the working of these committees.
By mid-2008, the level three committees should for the first time transmit to the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council draft work programmes, and thereafter start reporting annually on progress. This committee should also explore the possibility of strengthening the national application of guidelines, recommendations and standards; they should introduce in their charters the possibility of applying qualified majority voting coupled with a comply or explain procedure; they should study the possibilities of introducing a common set of operational guidelines for the operation of colleges of supervisors and monitor the coherence of the practices of the different colleges of supervisors. The level three committees and the Commission should suggest – also by mid-2008 – a timetable for the introduction of EU-wide reporting format for single data requirements and reporting dates."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples