Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-079"
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"en.20080922.19.1-079"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioners, rapporteurs, I believe that this report as adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is a good one, and we should be grateful to Mr Rasmussen, in particular, for having insisted over so many months on the need for wider-ranging EU intervention in the areas that are the subject of tonight’s debate.
Nevertheless, my group has re-tabled a number of amendments which – strange as it may seem – were drafted not by us but by Mr Rasmussen himself. In other words, these are important proposals – notably on the establishment of an EU-level supervisory body and a European system of registration and approval for asset management and fund management companies (Amendments 6 and 7) and the introduction of a debt limit for capital investment funds (Amendment 9) – which Mr Rasmussen put forward but which he felt compelled to withdraw, understandably in certain respects, in order to secure a majority in the House: that is to say, a majority with the PPE Group and the Liberals.
As I see it, these amendments – which cover issues raised in the working documents and which we consider to be constructive and worth arguing for – were withdrawn because here in Parliament, as in the Council and most certainly in the Commission, there are two schools of thought: the first is that we have enough rules already, at both national and European level, and that any outstanding problems can be addressed through self-regulation by the finance industry; the second, to which Mr Rasmussen subscribes (and he is by no means alone), has been saying for years that the current supervisory system for the financial markets generally is inadequate.
The reason why no action was taken, Mr McCreevy, was not, in my view, because we could not predict, or were unaware, of developments. I believe that, over the years, quite a few authoritative voices have been raised, particularly in the Forum for Financial Stability, to alert the public authorities to the nature of the risks we faced.
You and the Barroso Commission have generally tended to argue for a more laissez-faire approach, deeming the current arrangements to be adequate. What Parliament is asking of you now is nothing less than a change of heart. Whether you can manage that I do not know, but I believe it is necessary.
Personally I should like to emphasise three points which other speakers have already touched on but which are of particular concern to environmentalists. We know that the climate and energy package that needs to be adopted will depend on a sustained level of investment, at a relatively modest rate of return with relatively modest gains, to provide the financing we need.
Financial instruments such as equity funds and hedge funds are not appropriate and we are waiting for the European banking and monetary authorities to come forward with ideas for putting some old proposals back on the table: I am thinking here of Jacques Delors’ proposals in the early 1990s and of a reinvigorated role for the European Investment Bank so that we can secure long-term investment at a moderate rate of return.
It will be hard to stabilise the financial system – and the Rasmussen report mentions this point – without a determined assault on offshore financial centres and tax havens, and this is another area where the Barroso Commission is failing to take a lead. Lastly, in relation to corporate governance – which other speakers have also mentioned – we ought to take a much harder look at investment funds’ managerial pay and reward policies. They are not acceptable and indeed they pose a threat to the economy generally."@en1
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