Brussels, 27/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - In New York on 20 April at a conference on Trans-Atlantic Financial Dialogue, the Commissioner for the internal market and services, Charlie McCreevy, appealed or the application of the principle of origin in the financial sector. He said that auditing, insurance; capital goods were perhaps areas where this principle could be envisaged. “For a long time, total harmonisation was stressed. The idea was that only a central and unified code was able to really integrate European markets. An excellent idea in theory. But in practice, that has not worked”. He added that the objective had to be mutual recognition of equivalency, which could also be called the principle of country of origin. He stated that if other systems were accepted as equivalent, regulatory duplication would disappear and one could therefore operate in another country according to the rules of country of origin.
On 22 April, the European Commission and the US Securities and Exchange Commission reached an agreement on a road map, which should result in recognition of equivalency in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and US accounting standards (US GAAP: EUROPE 8934).
The initial draft directive on internal market services, as presented by the Commission, introduces the principle of country of origin in cross-border services but does not cover financial services. Mutual recognition does not exclude the obligation of service providers to respect certain rules in countries of destination, notably with regard to social policy, consumer and environmental protection, security and public safety.