Luxembourg, 02/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - the Council has adopted conclusions approving a report from the financial and economic committee highlighting the "integral and coherent application" of measures adopted in the action plan on financial services (FSAP). The Council believes that it is important to continue to improve enterprise government, auditing and accounting standards and to continue reform of the legislation on European companies". He welcomed the creation of committee procedure structures that allow for the rapid adoption of secondary legislation on the banking and insurance sectors, according to the "Lamfalussy procedure" in support of the idea that market actors "including consumers and end users" have to present questions concerning application to the committees.
The Council also "took note" of the Commission reports on European financial market integration. The Commission observed that 93% of planned legislation in the action plan had been adopted. There is now only the directives on the legal inspections of statutory audits presented by the Commission in March on adequate funding (expected for the end of June), and the directive on money laundering for July, which need to be adopted.
Commissioner Bolkestein also examined ongoing negotiations on international accounting standards for financial instruments (IAS 32 and 39 defined by the IASB. According to Bolkestein, co-operative banks appear to have satisfied standard 32, with insurance obtaining guarantees on the possibility of separating assets and liabilities and central banks appearing to lift their initial reservations on these standards. The issue still pending is that on capital deposits and their conversion which poses problems for the banks, particularly French banks, noted the Commissioner, who underlined that "the banks were not a united front" insofar as some of them were already applying the standards as they were. Bolkestein hoped that an agreement could be obtained at the accounting regulation committee meeting on 14 June, which would allow the Commission to reach a decision for the entry into force of these standards in 2005, together with other IAS standards already approved.
Commissioner Bolkestein also presented a "PricewaterhouseCooper" report ensuring that the "Basle II" agreement on the level of capital demanded by the lending institutions would not have a negative impact on SMEs.