Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-106"
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"en.20080922.19.1-106"2
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"Madam President, I want to thank my colleagues, and also the Commissioner, for the debate.
Just before I round off the debate as far as I am concerned on the report, I want to say to Mr Purvis, my colleague, that it is true that banks are regulated, but the products that were the cause of all this trouble we are having now are not regulated, and it was not regulated that we could put as much aside of the balance sheet as we actually did. So, Mr Purvis, the answer is that we need better regulation and we need regulation for the products as well.
I would say to Mrs Starkevičiūtė, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, that I am not talking about regulating the entity but about regulating the behaviour. We know that in real life hedge funds and private equity often change their legal constructions, and there are a lot of examples of that – investment banks themselves have executed private equity activities. So it is behaviour we have to change, and this is at the heart of this report.
I would say to Commissioner McCreevy that there is one fundamental thing – which has nothing to do with dogmatism or whatever – that I want to underline to you, and that is that the first paragraph in our report underlines the following: that the regulation has to cover all financial actors. It is the fundamental intention of this report, for the first time in the European Union’s legislative history, that what we want is a common total regulation based on the philosophy of a level playing field, leaving no one outside, but which has a unique regulation covering all financial actors. The report explicitly adds: ‘including hedge funds and private equity’. Then you tell me, Commissioner McCreevy, and the rest of the European Parliament: yes, I agree with you, but not on hedge funds or private equity. What are we talking about here? For three years we have been discussing with you whether private equity or hedge funds should be covered or not covered by regulation. Before the financial crisis you said this was not necessary: they are better than any government to regulate, so let them do their job. Now you say that they do not have a share in the financial crisis, so we will not intervene in regulating the hedge funds and private equity.
Mr Commissioner, you talked about lobbyism here in the European Parliament. I can confirm to you that many hedge funds, lobbying organisations and private equity organisations are here every day, every night, every time. But I think this House must now insist that the Commission – and that is you – come up, before the end of the year, with a total regulation; this is the first paragraph covering all financial actors."@en1
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