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The EU as the largest user of IFRS needs to ensure to play a bigger role in the standard setting progress, Commissioner McCreevy underlined in his keynote address to a conference in
”We have to ask whether these rules accelerated the crisis and/or are now continuing to aggravate it”, he said and called on the IASB to accelerate work on crisis related issues and come forward with technical solutions in time for the preparation of the 2009 annual accounts, in particular concerning impairment.
There is growing concern among Finance Ministers at the perceived slowness of the IASB in responding to the systemic crisis, Mccreevy said underlining that the recent amendments to US GAAP could be at a disadvantage for IFRS users.
“Many Council Finance Ministers have complained about what they see as an ‘over-academic’ approach to standard-setting, which many see as ‘out of touch’ with today’s reality”, McCreevy reported.
On fair value, some degree of flexibility is needed especially on where and how to apply it, he said and also wants to see loan-loss provisioning used more broadly. “I am extremely pleased that the IASB and FASB have already started discussing these ideas in their Financial Crisis Advisory Group and also with banking regulators”, he said. “Again, this is a top priority for us.”