Brussels, 07/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a joint letter dated Monday 6 July and sent to the European Commission, the French and German finance ministers, Christine Lagarde and Peer Steinbrück underlined the necessity for the results from the discussions from the most recent Ecofin Council discussions on revising International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to be implemented by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) (EUROPE 9918 and 9916). In their letter they say that the European Commission shares the opinion that European companies are handicapped competitively and that action is urgently required in this area. They explain that this is why we are expecting the entry into force of the modification of standards in time for the 2009 accounts. The IASB is responsible for drawing up accounting standards and has been under strong pressure to revise IAS 39 accounting standards in an effort to put European financial institutions on an equal footing with their US counterparts, which benefit from more flexible rules when calculating their impaired assets.
On Tuesday 7 July during the public debate at the Ecofin Council of the Swedish presidency's priorities in the economic and financial domains, Mr Steinbrück said: “The IASB must finalise its work on the IAS 39 by the autumn and not the end of the year”. On the question of global reform of this accounting standard, the German and French ministers are seeking an approach that takes into account, “all points of view”. They are backing the work being carried out in several international bodies on the question of “loss provisioning on expected loans so that accounting rules effectively play a counter-cyclical role but do not hinder transparency” of financial information (EUROPE 9936). They also appeal for the IASB to draw conclusions on the financial crisis by focusing less on short term market evaluation and more on the long term role of the financial institutions. (M.B./transl.rh)