Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-12-Speech-1-165-000"
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"en.20110912.24.1-165-000"2
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Madam President, confidence is what the European companies and economy needs. Audit companies are currently weighed down by a concentration and lack of independence of auditors, and they do not help to generate the much-desired confidence to get our economy going again.
A proposal for eliminating the legal obligation for account auditing cannot be ruled out. Why not? If we want to recover the confidence of the markets and market stability, we must carry out a deep reform of the audits, so that they provide genuine added value, and not merely a legal burden.
The big auditing firms use auditing services as a business card for their future customers. Once familiar with the company, they offer more burdensome additional services through which they often compensate for the low prices of auditing itself.
We have a price distortion problem within the sector. These additional services already comprise almost 50% of turnover, which is why the big auditing firms do not wish to lose the auditing services, not for the auditing itself, but rather to maintain and increase the additional services.
The second major obstacle to free competition in the sector is the oligopoly comprised of the four big firms that account for over 90% of the European market. As an oligopoly, they control prices and place barriers against new competition, using intangible ideas such as the brand’s international image.
It is true that this brand image can provide advantages, but it does not always mean greater efficiency, given the legislative diversity in terms of accounting statements liable to be processed in a special way in each Member State.
I share the aims of the Green Paper, in terms of the independence and deconcentration of the sector, and the means to be used: rotation, group audits, tendering, fortifying professional scepticism, prevalence of substance over form, and the separation of auditing services from non-auditing services. I have tried to apply them to my report within what is permitted by the parliamentary majorities and the report’s modest reach.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is nothing more than a small step towards achieving new legislation that rights the wrongs in the audit sector, which have led us to this terrible economic crisis.
Good luck, Mr Barnier! May you continue along this path and achieve a good result!"@en1
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