Brussels, 28/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - During a first exchange of views, on Tuesday, with the EP Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Alexandre Lamfalussy, who chaired the Group of Wise Men that drafted the report on regulation of securities markets, came up against opposition from MEPs. The latter were opposed to some of his proposals which, they said, would weaken the role of the Parliament (see EUROPE of 16 February, p.7). The report proposes a procedure allowing for decision-making to be speeded up on regulation of securities markets. Though MEPs approve the broad outlines, they express concern about the role of the European Securities Committee (ESC), the cornerstone of the decision-making system proposed in the Lamfalussy Report. Christa Randzio-Plath (Social Democrat, Germany), who chairs the parliamentary committee, mainly criticised the report for lacking a "call-back" system that would give the Parliament the possibility of opposing ESC decisions. MEPs consider as insufficient the possibilities offered to the Parliament to adopt a legally non-binding resolution if the Commission goes beyond its rights. Mr Lamfalussy expresses doubt about the possibility that the Parliament will manage to redirect the policy of the European executive, and felt that the procedure envisaged is transparent and assures Parliament is kept informed at every stage. A second criticism concerns the impossibility for the Parliament of intervening from the moment the ESC decides. A third concerns the absence of Parliament in the decision implementation phase. One of the MEPs the most opposed to the Lamfalussy report declared: "the European Securities Committee is a sort of clone of the Ecofin Council in so far as the procedure provides for the same weighting system as in the Council of Ministers". Mr Lamfalussy replied that the role of the securities committee can only be understood if one takes into account the existence, alongside it, of the committee on regulating securities which commits governments to not hinder cooperation of national regulators, but to encourage it. He remarked that he had not himself defined the context of his mandate established by Ecofin last July.
In a press release, Christa Randzio-Plath recommends, as an alternative, "greater use (…) of existing Treaty instruments to speed up the decision-making process, rather than relying on a cumbersome and highly complex new approach which reduces parliament's role and could, in fact, prove slower".
During its debate on the Lamfalussy Report in plenary on 14 March, the European Parliament should above all call for the establishment of a "call-back" procedure or "similar mechanism".