European Parliaments
ECON Committee held an exchange of views with Commissioner McCreevy and had a first discussion on the Commissions White Paper on Financial Services.
Commissioner McCreevy first focused on the EU-US relationship summarizing the current achievements on accounting, deregulation and Basel II. The commissioner is of the opinion that US law will soon move in the direction of EU legislation rather than vice verse as the progress made in improving EU law has proved to be a success and the EU market became the most attractive one.
He then turned to current EU projects. On the Payment Directive he underlined that a Council agreement has to be found on the prudential regulation of payment institutions. Other issues currently under discussion relate to the prudential assessment on Mergers and Acquisitions and on retail services.
McCreevy did not comment on the sector inquiry on retail banking as the report was to be officially published the next day. However, he explained that the Commission is now waiting for the responses on the inquiry.
He also underlined that the Commission does not intend to contribute to the discussion on Hedge Funds as currently there is not even a common definition on what these fund are. Also, Member States do have their own legislation to deal with hedge funds internally.
COMMISSION WHITE PAPER
Mrs van den Burg will draw a report on the Commission White Paper by February 2007. Issues in the report will include five points. These include:
1) The market development – including the consolidation at top level, new products and their complexities, and oligopolistic tendencies.
2) Access to Finance.
3) Consumer protection and investor education.
4) Better regulation and soft law.
5) Future of European supervision, particularly in the light of a fragmented supervisory structure in Europe.
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