01 July 2008

French Presidency Work Programme

The Presidency seeks to reinforce the supervision of cross-border financial groups and will work towards a European passport for fund management companies as part of the amendment of the UCITS Directive. A Commission proposal is expected for July 16.

The incoming French Presidency will concentrate on the implementation of the roadmap for financial stability. This includes an agreement on Credit Rating Agencies, and the amendment of the Capital Adequacy Directive.

 

The Presidency also seeks to reinforce the supervision of cross-border financial groups and will work towards a European passport for fund management companies as part of the amendment of the UCITS Directive. A Commission proposal is expected to be published on July 16th.

 

Further issues include removing the obstacles to banking mobility, and clearing and settlement issues in particular with regard to the T2S project.

 

France took over the Presidency of the European Union on 1^st July.

 

Excerpt of the Work Programme:

 

Reinforcing financial stability

The development and growing integration of the financial markets have provided additional room for manoeuvre in financing the economy while also improving the sharing of risk. Nevertheless, the upheavals experienced since the summer of 2007 underline the need to reinforce the stability and transparency of the financial system and to remedy these malfunctions.

 

The French Presidency will implement the roadmap for financial stability, stressing the need for greater transparency in the markets, greater responsibility on the part of the various players in the financial sphere, and the establishment of adequate supervision of trans-European financial groups.

 

On the question of transparency, a special effort needs to be made by the professionals and authorities concerned to provide investors with complete and readable information. The French Presidency will seek an agreement on rating agencies, in order to establish an efficient monitoring system at the European level. The French Presidency will also focus on the management of liquidity and the processing of securitisation transactions by way of an amendment to the Directive on Capital Adequacy. These activities will be carried out in close coordination with the work in progress at the international level, on which the Presidency will seek common positions.

 

Improving the European system of supervision

The French Presidency will strive to reinforce the supervision of cross-border financial groups and to promote a convergent application of finance law throughout the European Union. With regard to insurance in particular, it will ensure that the adoption of the “Solvency II” proposal enables harmonisation of the rules and practices of control, in order to advance the integration of the European insurance market and to implement better protection for insured parties.

 

Pursuing financial integration in Europe

Retail financial services are an important aspect of daily life for the citizens of the European Union, but they are as yet insufficiently integrated. In this context, the French Presidency will strive to respond to the legitimate expectations of European citizens, particularly by supporting the initiative being taken at the European level to remove the obstacles to banking mobility, and by encouraging the work aimed at constructing a Europe of payments.

 

In the back-office domain, over and above the work on the Target 2 Securities project being run by the European System of Central Banks and the European Central Bank itself, the French Presidency will ask the Council to evaluate European initiatives in order to arrive at greater comparability of prices, greater legal and fiscal harmonisation, and improved prudential supervision at the European level.

 

The Presidency will work towards the introduction of a European passport for fund management companies as part of the amendment of the UCITS Directive, to give substance at last to the idea of a single market in financial management.

 

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