Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-07-04-Speech-1-066-000"
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"en.20110704.21.1-066-000"2
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"−
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, this report concerns short selling and the supervision of credit default swaps, those products that insure debt against default, in particular state default.
The origins of this text lie in the Greek crisis, which began in spring 2010. Following certain movements on the financial markets that had been observed, a political request was put to Commissioner Barnier and to the European Commission to establish European rules on short selling and on sovereign debt speculation tools. The Commission drafted that regulation in September. This was followed by the adoption of our position in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in March, and of the Council position in May. Since then we have been negotiating, because we have already had five trialogues, which have enabled us to reach a number of possible compromises. Although they are not here, I should like to thank the representatives of the Hungarian Presidency who took part in these trialogues and helped to move this matter forward.
However, after those four or five negotiating sessions, we and the shadow rapporteurs who voted by a majority for this text in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs – in other words, the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, which I represent – took the decision to vote in the July part-session for this text, but not for the legislative proposal, in order to send two messages. The first message consists in saying that we want to carry on negotiating with the Council because it has been almost a year since the Commission tabled this text and because, on this issue as on others, Parliament wishes to adopt a responsible yet ambitious attitude. We want these texts; we want the rules on financial markets to change. Too often, we have to wait for the Council, which clearly takes much longer to make its decisions than we do. Therefore, we want to carry on negotiating, which means that we will not be voting for the legislative proposal tomorrow.
However, we also want to send three messages on the substance in order to reaffirm the positions adopted in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which will become the positions of the European Parliament too when it adopts them – by a very large majority, I think – tomorrow.
The first issue concerns the role of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). In our version we have strengthened the role of ESMA, and you have reminded us many times, Commissioner, of the importance of that institution when it comes to ensuring the consistency of the single-market rules on financial services. I have to say that the position adopted in the Council – to have a red line that is an absolute red line for us, to create a right of veto for States on European regulatory issues concerning sovereign debt – is completely unacceptable.
The second point that I wished to raise is that we in Parliament want a simple rule: when you sell an asset, be it a share or a bond, you must be able to know for certain where to find it; there must be an agreement with the person who is going to lend it to you. This is what is known as the ‘hard locate’ rule in technical speak. This is Parliament’s position, and I think it is a sensible one.
The final point that I should like to emphasise, and which is obviously a key element of the discussions we are having, is the ban on naked credit default swaps. This position is shared by a large majority of the European Parliament. We do not see how it is possible, in financial terms, to cover oneself against a risk with a credit default swap without being liable for that risk, in other words without owning the bond of the country that issued the security. It is a nonsense and it opens the door to speculation.
To conclude, I would say that the current debates on Greece prove us right, because some of the arguments made to limit the Greek restructuring consist in saying, ‘Yes, but some people have speculated. If the debt is restructured, they are going to make money without having invested in Greece.’ That is exactly what we want to put a stop to."@en1
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