Single financial market making headway

Date: 04/11/1999

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission will report next week that member states are making good progress in implementing ambitious plans to create a single European market in financial services.

But Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein will call on governments to conclude discussions quickly on proposed rules to allow the creation of EU-wide firms and implement legislation on winding up credit institutions.

The report, which is due to be endorsed by the full Commission next Wednesday (10 November), will be discussed by EU finance ministers at the end of this month.

The financial services action plan unveiled by former Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti earlier this year is aimed at enabling both retail and professional investors to take full advantage of the single currency.

Monti's plan, and a parallel pension reform package, were rushed through the Commission while it was serving in a caretaker capacity following the body's mass resignation in the spring.

"The overall objective here is to have within the EU a fully integrated financial services market as an essential follow-up to the arrival of the euro," Bolkestein said recently.

His report follows a meeting of the EU financial services policy group, made up of finance ministers' representatives. They agreed that, in general, "satisfactory" progress was being made on the action plan, but said policy-makers should take advantage of changes to the EU treaty which have established a fast-track procedure for financial services legislation.

The European Commission is to report that Member States are making good progress in implementing ambitious plans to create a single European market in financial services.