Mr President, at the end of last week the Dutch Finance Minister announced measures to restore confidence in the financial markets. I welcome this announcement. Better late than never, and I notice that similar steps are being taken in many other Member States. It does look, however, as if each Member State is independently trying to re-invent the wheel. While we at EU level are busy integrating the financial markets under the inspiring leadership of Commissioner Bolkestein, the capitals are, in my view, overlooking the fact that a great deal of what goes on in the financial markets transcends the borders of Member States and also transcends the borders of sectors. We began discussing the options for increasing the effectiveness of supervision and European cooperation in Parliament before the summer. Hearings were held with leading figures from the supervisory world and the report you have before you is a reflection of the discussions that we have held. Regulators and market players themselves are pressing for further European cooperation and integration. That is what struck me in this debate and I believe that as politicians we are duty-bound to react adequately to the new risks that are presenting themselves. In my report I have opted for a pragmatic approach, as Mr Bolkestein said earlier, and proposed a great many practical measures, the details of which I shall not be going into now, but the intention is indeed little by little to work on better cooperation and integration. I have deliberately chosen not to give a blueprint of what an ideal situation might be, which would then have to be imposed top down, but to work mainly on the basis of current practice to lay the emphasis not on the interinstitutional debate, but in fact on the quality and the effectiveness of the implementation of supervision at the moment. I believe that this is an important starting point for the debate that we must continue to pursue. In this way we can work towards further European integration step by step. What has struck me is that the debate in Brussels, and I am referring in particular here to the EFC report and the discussion in the ECOFIN council, has been about the institutional setting and the mutual balance of power instead of about strengthening structural cooperation and coordination at European level. Power struggles are being fought over chairmanships and secretariat functions, perhaps with locations already in the back of the mind. I do not find this sensible. In my report I have tried to keep my distance from power games of this kind and to focus on the substantive arguments. Mr Bolkestein has already said, and for me it is beyond dispute, that we need a strong European Commission, which works from the perspective of an integrated market and fulfils the role of an independent broker capable of bringing providers and consumers of financial services together. For my taste, the Council is still basing this a little too much on the national level alone and I fear that this will lead to large Member States making up most of the team and in the process allowing other interests to weigh more heavily than the interest of better cooperation and more effective supervision. Another point of criticism is that the discussion within the Council and within the EFC has for the most part taken place behind closed doors, without any national parliamentary involvement. I think that it has been good that as a result of the debate in Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we have forced this situation into the open and also made it more transparent. Well, this discussion is by no means at an end as far as we are concerned. We call on the Finance Ministers to broaden the discussion. A number of ideas are being suggested for this, but, as I have already said, no final choices have yet been made in the resolution. This is precisely why this broader debate is needed. What I really want to emphasise and also insist on in this debate is the ‘enabling clause’ we have included in the report to provide a legal basis for the possibility of the performance of European supervision at European level too. Perhaps this can be discussed at the IGC and perhaps also by the Convention. There is currently no provision for this in the Treaty, either for the ECB, nor for other possible regulators that we might imagine at European level. We are leaving it entirely open as to how and when this issue might be raised, but we do think that it is important to make provision for it now, as a condition for such a development. Mr Bolkestein was evidently fairly surprised by this proposal when we discussed it in the committee. I hope that he has since given it some more thought and can now be rather more positive about it, because that is precisely what we have missed with the Lamfalussy procedure, namely that this has been considered in advance and that you must also make conditions for it. Finally, a word about this Lamfalussy procedure. I have to say that I myself have no objection to this extension to include banks, the insurance sector and the conglomerates and pension funds. This is what clearly appears in the resolution too, but I consider it highly essential for us to look at the conditions that have to be created to enable Parliament to play a full part. We shall, however, be taking a closer look at this in the remainder of the debate.

Political group: PSE