Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein put the history of this debate in just a few words with his usual aplomb. He said that the text has evolved considerably since the Commission first published it. That reflects in a very understated way the radical changes we have seen to this proposal, due in large part to the efforts made by this House. Those changes have the full support of my group and the British Conservative delegation within it. We have campaigned from the start to end the requirement for mandatory, annual shelf registration. We are delighted to see that is one of the 50 of 62 amendments which were accepted by the Commission and the Council. This requirement could have imposed millions of pounds and euros' worth of costs on businesses large and small across the European Union. The original proposal from the Commission could have devastated Europe's small-business stock markets such as Aim markets. The changes we have seen as a result of Parliament's efforts are extremely welcome and have considerably improved the proposal. We have also been campaigning for a suitable framework to cover bonds. It was a concern at the early stages of the text that a 'one size fits all' framework designed for equities was being imposed on the bond markets. Again, we are very pleased to see that the bond market is going to be given distinctive treatment, which reflects the differences between the bonds and the securities market. We fundamentally support the idea of issuer choice. Giving issuers the maximum facility and flexibility in choosing a jurisdiction is one of the best ways to facilitate genuine cross-border trade and genuine integration of our capital markets. We can accept the compromise on this point, though my delegation and probably the group as well would have liked to have been more radical in this area and given issuers a wider choice; in particular, we would have liked to have seen issuer choice and flexibility in relation to equities. Certainly we are delighted to see the flexibility that has been introduced for the bond market. There is issuer choice in the bond markets at the moment and that has contributed to integration of the markets and a building up of specialist regulatory expertise in particular jurisdictions. To require all issuers of bonds to issue in their home Member States would have been a retrograde step in creating an integrated capital market. We are also very concerned to ensure that the language regime cannot be used to protect markets. That was the key flaw in the existing prospectus directive and again we are very pleased at the development of the text. We are now confident that the language regime is acceptable again. We would have liked something a little more radical, but I think there are safeguards which will prevent the difficulties we have seen with the current prospectus directive and make it much more difficult for language to be used to protect national markets. I am also pleased that the scare about the threat to corporate government standards has been dispelled. It is now quite clear that the prospectus directive will not prevent Member States from imposing the high corporate government standards that exist in many places, for example in the United Kingdom. This debate is also an illustration of the importance of the Commission carrying out extensive consultation in advance of publishing its proposals. The prospectus directive was published without much extensive consultation and it has taken us longer to resolve the issues as a result. I am pleased that the Commission in its subsequent proposals has consulted more extensively and effectively before publication. I hope that is the attitude it will take in the future.

Political group: PPE-DE