-Commissioner Frits Bolkestein acknowledged problems with the Directive on Prospectuses in a speech to the EMAC Committee last Monday.
The Commissioner said he could not comment on Germany's bid to toughen the proposal up in the wake of the Enron scandal. But he did say the ideas from Germany were being submitted “late in the day”.
German Finance Minister Hans Eichel wrote last week to Member State colleagues seeking major changes in the proposal - which was originally intended to ease cross-border investment. Germany now wants the establishment of a single European regulatory agency to issue prospectuses, common EU liability laws, and the right to see full prospectuses in every official EU language.
Several Member States rejected Germany's proposal to create a single competent authority to oversee such documents. The United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland argue that proposal merely complicates on-going discussions on the draft Directive. The German proposal was only supported by Italy and France.
Mr Bolkestein also told MEPs he was concerned about some European Parliament attempts to ease the requirements of the Directive. He would not be able to accept the Parliament's amendments designed to exempt small firms from too onerous a regulatory burden, if they “would exempt some 75% of all listed companies from the proposal”. But he said he was prepared to consider flexibility on the question of self-registration.
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