Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-03-Speech-1-077"
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"en.20060703.14.1-077"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, whatever may be said to the contrary, the single market has not yet been completed. Financial services is one of the main areas where further improvements are possible and necessary. You, Commissioner McCreevy, are trying to change this state of affairs. The European Parliament is happy to support you in this venture. The Muscat report gives the House an opportunity today to throw its weight firmly behind the immediate removal of unwarranted obstacles to mergers and acquisitions. I should like to congratulate Mr Muscat warmly on a very balanced report and thank him for the open and constructive cooperation.
The political frontier between two Member States of the European Union must not be a barrier to cross-border mergers or acquisitions. The decision to merge with or acquire a company should not be a political matter but should depend solely on whether the merger or takeover will benefit shareholders and staff as well as customers and business partners in Europe or round the globe and will thereby make the companies in question more competitive. On no account, however, must a merger or acquisition infringe EU competition law. In short, the task of politicians – as Commissioner McCreevy has said – cannot be to decide whether more or fewer mergers will take place but only to ensure that the whole system is not thrown out of balance.
With regard to the possible merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext, I take the view, unlike the previous speaker, that politicians should not play an active role here. They must only draw a line where it becomes apparent that American attitudes to supervision are suddenly establishing themselves in Europe through this merger. That possibility cannot entirely be dismissed if we consider that even money-market transactions between European parties are increasingly being conducted, to all intents and purposes, in accordance with US market legislation.
Unwarranted barriers of a fiscal or supervisory nature must be removed. At the request of the Ecofin Council, the Commission has been working to identify the precise nature of these barriers. As a concrete result of these efforts, let me cite the forthcoming publication of the amendment to Article 16 of the Banking Directive. Supervisory authorities must, of course, have teeth. In Article 16, however, the grounds on which the competent supervisory authority can reject a cross-border merger or takeover are too vaguely defined. Assessment based on the ‘fit and proper’ test leaves the supervisory authority a great deal of scope to interpret the criteria and is therefore open to abuse. Recent cases have clearly illustrated this defect.
Transparency, logical decisions and hence predictability for companies are aspects that we shall have to discuss over the coming months. As the parliamentary rapporteur on these issues, I await the Commission’s proposals with particular interest.
Lastly, let me make a few comments on the tabled amendments. I support Mr Muscat’s proposal for the appointment of a committee of wise men to examine the effects of consolidation and to study issues of supervision and supervisory law, of financial stability and of crisis management. I also consider it right and proper that the committee be given six months to compile an authoritative report with specific proposals on the issues that have been highlighted.
My own amendments are designed to make the draft somewhat more impartial. It is about the single European market and the removal of unwarranted barriers. In other words, Parliament must not seek to set the specific situation in a Member State in tablets of stone or to change such a situation at all costs.
Let us set aside our national spectacles. Let us ensure that the industry and consumers are given the single market they desperately need. This is the only route to success in the global marketplace."@en1
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