Brussels, 25/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Ecofin Council reached agreement on Tuesday on the "transparency" directive, which harmonises the content and timescale for publication of the financial information to be provided by companies quoted on the stock exchange. Pending the opinion of the European Parliament, it has adopted a "general approach" resolving the main points on which there is disagreement. In particular, Ministers reached a compromise on the publication of quarterly reports, which are felt by a small majority of Member States to be too restrictive. Companies will no longer be required to publish figures in their "interim" reports, just qualitative information including: 1) an explanation of events and transactions which have taken place since the last report, and their impact on the financial position of the issuers and the companies they control; 2) a general description of the financial position and performance of the issuers and their subsidiaries. In practice, these reports are supposed to summarise insurance, purchase, refund of debt and issuing operations. These rules will not apply to companies which already publish more detailed quarterly reports in application of their national legislation or on their own initiative. The issue of quarterly reports will be reviewed by the Commission in five years. The compromise also provides to an exemption from "transparency" rules for "sovereign" issuers, in other words public authorities and national banks. This clarification was requested notably for the central banks of Greece and Belgium, indicated Belgian Minister Didier Reynders.
These annual company reports should furthermore be published no later than four months after the end of the tax year, rather than three months as provided for by the Commission.
This compromise was adopted under pressure from the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and Austria. France, Germany and Portugal supported the Commission's proposal, and would have preferred stricter rules. The Parliament's rapporteurs also wanted to lighten the quarterly obligations placed on companies.