Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-13-Speech-2-009"
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"en.20090113.4.2-009"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in July 2008 the European Commission presented its proposal for a revision of the existing Directive on Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS), thus providing the basis for what we are debating today. We needed to stick to an extremely ambitious timetable if we wanted to ensure that we could actually succeed in revising the UCITS Directive, which has been in place since 1985 in its initial form, by the end of this parliamentary term.
The clear aim of these reforms was to improve the competitiveness of the European fund industry, to enable it to reduce its costs, to develop and make use of economies of scale, to ensure that all fund providers do indeed have access to all markets in the European Union, and to achieve all of this without reducing protection for investors: on the contrary, we wanted to improve protection for investors. In other words, we had a very ambitious programme, and I have to say that I really do appreciate the fact that, in cooperation with all the institutions involved, we have managed to conclude this project within such a short period.
Investment funds provide small investors with the option of investing small sums of capital in a diversified, professionally managed portfolio. In the past, European UCITS have already proven to be a great success story. Collective investments in transferable securities are not only sold in Europe, but are also, to a not inconsiderable extent, exported to regions outside the European Union – particularly to South America and Asia – where they are very highly regarded. That is why it was so important, when revising this directive, to ensure that we did not damage the status of these UCITS.
The UCITS Directive has been amended twice in the past, and on this occasion too, the Commission has tackled the revision with great care. It carried out a consultation process, presented a green paper and a white paper, and undertook in-depth discussions with all those involved in the market. The Commission proposed a total of six measures in this revision, which should help to achieve the aims I referred to earlier.
These include, firstly, introducing a management company passport; secondly, facilitating cross-border mergers of funds, in order to reduce the number of funds provided in the European Union and thus resolve the imbalance that can currently be seen between Europe and, in particular, the United States; thirdly, providing the possibility of master-feeder structures, in other words the option of investing one fund in another master fund and having that master fund manage the investments; fourthly, developing a short – only two pages long – information document, known as the key investor information, containing the most important information for small investors; fifthly, simplifying the notification procedure in order to ensure that, when a fund requests authorisation in a country where it is not yet authorised, this does not
result in a new re-authorisation; and, finally, strengthening supervisory cooperation.
The fund industry has not escaped unscathed from the financial crisis. A lot of money has flowed out, and in these circumstances it is absolutely vital that we make decisions as soon as possible, in order to strengthen the credibility of the funds and to ensure that small investors do not lose confidence in these investment instruments.
I would just like to conclude with two final comments. The first is that the Commission has established a group, chaired by Jacques de Larosière, to examine the issue of supervision in Europe. I hope that the conclusions drawn by this group and the proposals it develops will ultimately be taken on board by the Commission and will find favour here. Secondly, particularly in the case of cross-border mergers of funds, we are still seeing differences in the tax treatment of cross-border mergers and national mergers. Here, too, we call on the Commission to make sure that we have the same conditions for both, not different treatment."@en1
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