Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-089"
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"en.20080922.19.1-089"2
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".
Madam President, I know that the Commissioner enjoys betting on horses so he will forgive me for using a sporting metaphor when I say that he is not exactly a favourite in today’s event. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, on the other hand, looks like a very good bet, so I think you might do well to consider changing colours, Commissioner. What Mr Rasmussen has just outlined and proposed to us is precisely what the European Union needs. It is right not only for the Union but for the rest of the world too – and the trans-Atlantic relationship that is so dear to your own heart would be enhanced by a European initiative on the basis of the Rasmussen proposals.
You seem to have come to the wrong debate, Commissioner. You gave us a review of how the crisis started last year, but the issues we are discussing now are issues that had engaged our attention long before the crisis surfaced last August, for the rot had clearly set in at that stage and the financial world was ripe for a collapse. We are not fuddy-duddies seeking to condemn or to prohibit alternative funds or investment funds. We simply recognise that when certain financial vehicles or instruments are performing such strategic functions in the international markets and have acquired such a key position, then they must be subject to the general principle of regulation. The operators in question are, in fact, telling us this themselves. They are saying: ‘Yes, OK, we can agree to regulation; we just do not want to be stigmatised and we do not want a special system of regulation.’
Well, fair enough! We want them to be registered, we want them to be supervised, we want them to be paid in accordance with normal principles, and we want them to be subject to transparency rules and to the rules on capital adequacy. That is the reality. These structures now occupy such an important place on the financial markets that they cannot continue to be exempt from the general rules. Yet, this is the very point that you, Commissioner – a former Irish Minister for Finance – are refusing to concede. That is the reality! You tell us that hedge funds and private equities ‘are not the cause of the current turmoil’ and that the blame lies with the regulated sector. I have no wish to deliver an economics lesson, but we know full well that the banks felt able to take the risks they took precisely because of the parallel existence of hedge funds and private equities, processing financial products that accelerated the rot in the banking sector.
In relation to Mr Rasmussen’s report, I should like to invite you to respond to it in practical terms, point by point, for it contains a number of legislative proposals that might improve your own end-of-term report when the current Commission steps down. I listened to what you told us and you spoke of a ‘window of opportunity’ for improving transparency. Well, we agree with you and we expect the Commission to use that opportunity. The key to confidence among ordinary people and among financial-market operators is transparency. It is obvious today that, in the areas of alternative funds and investment funds, there is no transparency. But transparency is what we need.
It goes without saying that I support many of the proposals in Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s report but I should also like to take the argument a little further. If we really want to strike at the heart of the problem, we shall have to examine the concept that you have described as the ‘shareholding democracy’. What is meant by a shareholding democracy if it is possible, in a matter of minutes or a matter of days, to put so many people’s jobs in jeopardy? There is a very real problem here, which you need to address and on which we expect effective proposals. Securities lending and borrowing jeopardises jobs in Europe and is at odds with the Lisbon Strategy.
My final point is one that previous speakers have also raised, namely the problem posed by offshore centres. You, Commissioner, are an ardent defender of the trans-Atlantic alliance, so allow me to inform you that over on the other side of the Atlantic there are democrats who, like us, are ready to lobby for a full-scale assault on tax havens. What is the use of fighting heroically in Afghanistan or Iraq without attacking evil where it exists on the financial markets – and offshore centres are a source of evil for the finance industry. This is another subject on which we await your proposals, Commissioner."@en1
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