Brussels, 19/12/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 18 December 2008, the European Parliament adopted a report by Piia-Noora Kauppi (EPP-ED, Finland) on a draft directive to amend Directive 98/26/EC on the definitive version of settlement and Directive 2002/47/EC on financial guarantee contracts. Giving its approval of a compromise text negotiated with the Council, the EP has kept the main objectives of the initial draft, namely strengthening the interconnection of clearing and settlement-delivery platforms without making them autonomous systems; extending protection to night settlement and settlement between connected systems; and extending protection to new types of assets (such as private credit) in order to facilitate their use within the EU.
Satirised with the agreement reached in first reading, Kauppi said she would have preferred member states to have agreed to scrap the notification demands on the supply for private credit as collateral. During a debate in plenary on 17 December, she said the issue was extremely sensitive for some member states. The Commission will publish a report on the issue in five years' time. EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said: “The establishment of a harmonised legal framework for the use of credit claims as collateral in cross-border transactions will further enhance market liquidity, so badly needed in the present environment (…). We have seen during the first months of the financial crisis that the demand for credit claims was growing, for instance as compared to the notorious asset-backed securities.” Approving the compromise, Pervenche Beres (PES, France) said the question was a tiny pebble that must not be used to hide the vast building site of integration of clearing and settlement. She said the outcome of what the
Commission had wanted to initiate with the code of conduct was very meagre, adding that self-regulation was not sufficient. (M.B./transl.fl)