Brussels, 02/06/2008 (Agence Europe) -This Tuesday, the European Finance Ministers are to review progress made in the implementation of four current initiatives in the compensation and delivery versus payment sector: - voluntary code of conduct signed at the end of 2006 by the industry (see EUROPE 9470, 9301); - the "Target2-Securities" project of the European Central Bank (ECB), which aims to set in place a single technological platform for the regulation of securities in the euro zone (see EUROPE 9372); - legal and tax obstacles to the completion of the interior market in the "post-market" sector (see EUROPE 8446); - the work of the European System of Central Banks (ECBS) and of the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) on the security and solidity of the sector.
According to the draft conclusions it is to adopt, the Ecofin Council stresses that additional progress is necessary to ensure an unbundling of the services and effective accounting separation, as well as in terms of accessibility to and interoperability of "post-market" operations. They call upon the ECB, when it takes its decision this summer on whether to continue with the "Target2-Securities" project, to take account of the option of creating a separate legal entity to manage the electronic platform. As regards the lifting of technical, legal and tax obstacles arising from the public sector and identified in the "Giovannini" reports, the Ecofin Council takes note of the Commission's intention to adopt a recommendation early in 2009 on withholding tax procedures and awaits with interest the scientific report of the group of experts on legal security, which is anticipated for July 2008. It calls upon the Commission and the CESR to ensure that market players are in a position to "fully exercise" the rights conferred upon them by the provisions on "post-market" operations of directive 2004/39/EC on financial market instruments. It is up to the Commission and the CESR to make proposals early in 2009 on these barriers, if they feel that the current measures are unsatisfactory. As for the security and stability of the infrastructures on which the compensation and delivery versus payment sector is based, the Ecofin Council takes the view that the documents of the ECBS and of the CESR should take the form of non-binding recommendations including international central securities depositories. The draft recommendations will be finalised by autumn 2008. (M.B.)