Brussels, 13/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Ecofin Council, which met on Thursday under the presidency of Didier Reynders, managed to reach "general guidelines" on three texts that are part of the priorities of the "action plan on financial services".
International Accounting Standards: The Council reached general guidelines on the regulation that will make the use of international accounting standards (IAS) compulsory from 2005 for the consolidated accounts of companies quoted on European stock markets. The Parliament is to give its stance in January.
Market abuse: The Council adopted a general guideline on the directive concerning "insider dealings and market manipulations", which provides for an exchange of information between the national surveillance authorities. The text simplifies and modernises the rules in force since 1989, by establishing a framework for the definition of these national surveillance authorities and by fixing rules for cooperation within the EU. Adoption of the text was speeded up after the attacks on 11 September in order to control any market abuse allowing terrorism activity to be funded. The Commission recently recalled the need for such legislation and stressed that there were only 13 cases of criminal sanctions throughout the European economic area between 1995 and 2000. We recall that the term "market abuse" designates cases where investors use to their advantage information that was not in the public domain, or diffuse misleading or wrong information.
Contracts for financial guarantees: The Council defines general guidelines on the directive that is to harmonise the guarantees required for financial institutions, in order to reduce the risks linked to the use of credit during financial transactions.