Brussels, 27/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - In the absence of Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, it was left to his Economic and Financial Affairs colleague Joaquin Almunia to present the state of progress of the code of conduct, which the clearing and settlement industry adhered to in November 2006 (see EUROPE 9301), to EU Finance Ministers. Peer Steinbrück, current President of the Ecofin Council, praised the Commission's “extraordinary” work.
Set up at the end of 2006, the clearing and settlement code of conduct monitoring group met for the first time at the end of January. In a working document, it sets out the implementation of the first stage of the code (which had been operational since the end of 2006) on transparency on prices charged by infrastructure suppliers for post trading operations. It states that the code has made a promising start. Significant steps have been taken to implement commitments on price transparency, it goes on. This is true for the publication of price lists and conditions for obtaining a discount. The group suggests, too, that suppliers and users should agree on a number of standard examples to be better able to compare prices.
The next quarterly meeting of the group, scheduled for 20 April, will allow stock to be taken of the price transparency section of the code of conduct, and also of the state of readiness of infrastructure suppliers for the second section of the code, which will see the setting up - by the end of 2007 - of measures to encourage access to the services of these suppliers and interoperability. The last section of the code is given to the unbundling of the services offered and their separate accounting from January 2008. (mb)