Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing a Union programme to support specific activities in the field of financial reporting and auditing for the period of 2014-2020

The single market is one of the European Union's greatest achievements. Integration and a well-functioning internal market are indispensable in making the Europe 2020 strategy successful and to put the EU economy on a sustainable growth path in order to overcome the financial and the subsequent sovereign debt crisis that unfolded since 2008.

As capital markets are global, harmonisation of financial reporting and audit rules at global level is essential for the smooth functioning of the capital markets and also for the realization of an integrated market for financial services in the EU. Instead of introducing its own set of regional financial reporting standards, and thereby harmonising the EU-level legislation but adding to regional fractions at the global level, in 2002 the EU decided to adopt international accounting standards (IFRS).

In 2009 the European Parliament and the Council established a Community Programme to support specific activities in the field of financial services, financial reporting and auditing. That Programme will end on 31 December 2013. The purpose of this Regulation is to renew that Programme for the next financial framework (2014-2020) and enable direct contributions to the funding of the Programme's beneficiaries from the Union budget in that period.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)782: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:782:FIN

European Commission: SWD(2012)444: Ex-ante evaluation http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SWD:2012:0444:FIN:EN:PDF

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