Press Release: Financial services: European Parliament’s approval of proposed Transparency Directive is good news for investors

The European Commission welcomed the European Parliament's vote on 30 March 2004 to approve the Commission's proposal for a Directive on transparency requirements for securities issuers. This will pave the way for adoption by the EU's Council of the European Union shortly. The proposal, a key part of the Financial Services Action Plan, aims to make the European financial market place more attractive, upgrading the information available to investors and helping them allocate their funds more efficiently, thus boosting the economy as a whole. Among its key achievements will be that investors will in future receive interim management statements from those share issuers who do not publish quarterly reports and will get half-yearly financial reports from issuers of new bonds. In addition, all securities issuers will have to provide annual financial reports within four months after the end of their financial year. The proposed Directive will also lead to better dissemination of information on issuers across Member States. The Commission will, under the proposal, establish a mechanism for assessing at EU level the equivalence between international accounting standards and third country accounting standards.

• Primary Source

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/internal_market/en/finances/mobil/transparency/ http://ec.europa.eu/comm/internal_market/en/finances/mobil/transparency/

http://europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+PRESS+DN-20040330-1+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=2&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N http://europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+PRESS+DN-20040330-1+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=2&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N

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