Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, the Parmalat affair is a systemic crisis because it was made possible by a world network of complicity and omissions, the key players of which were banks, financial institutions and external and internal control bodies, both public and private. I believe that the Parmalat affair gives a good indication of the negative aspects of the globalisation of financial markets, the internationalisation of which allows fraudsters to easily conceal and manipulate information. This shows how a necessary combination of transparency, efficiency and stability is all too often theoretical and, above all, fragile when faced with perverse desires rooted in a lack of ethics. I am sorry to say that the Parmalat affair is similar to far too many financial scandals that have been portrayed in the news recently: WorldCom and Enron for a start. It is unpleasant and difficult to have to admit it, but something in the world balance has gone wrong and has dragged everything into the abyss, including uninformed savers and operators, who were supposed to be on the alert and prevent this from happening. We do not want to deal with individual responsibilities, nor should we have to, because this is not our job; our job is instead to undertake to prevent similar cases from happening again. It is essential to combat infringements and fraud in such a way that financial analysts will not then find themselves in a situation where they have to advise their own clients to make criminal investments. Amongst other things, we have also looked over the Commission communication of May 2003 to the Council and to Parliament on modernisation of company law. In the motion for a resolution that we are presenting there are guidelines, which take into account the impact that the Parmalat affair has had and could have on its workers, savers, banks and the good operation of the financial system. It is our task to try to reverse this course, to try to protect the savings of millions of people and to regain the full trust of financial market investors. It is essential that we learn from this case and react in an appropriate way by objectively assessing what happened, by making projections in future and by not just hastily looking for scapegoats. This is about establishing what did not work, what the inefficiencies of the provisions are, about proposing solutions to them, and providing for new public control powers. We can have different political ideas on the aims of the regulation, on the production and distribution of income, but we must all agree on the fact that there must be no defrauding. Perhaps the crisis of legality is not just an issue of people but also of institutions, which are, perhaps, unsatisfactory. Perhaps the rules need to be looked at, re-thought and reviewed, and to do this we need to cooperate. The competent authorities for financial control of the different jurisdictions within the Union must cooperate. Cooperation is also called for with third countries; not just Europe but also the United States are part of this plan which is of primary importance. I also urge the Commission to monitor any new measure which concerns the role of rating agencies. I will take the liberty of again asking the Commission to incorporate into the action plan on corporate governance measures designed to prevent conflicts of interests, whether they be those concerning investments made by banks or other financial institutions in listed companies controlled by internal stakeholders or, rather, those concerning cases of financial analysts who work for investment banks and advise their clients to invest in companies which are provided with profitable services by their bank. Furthermore, we need to make shareholders more responsible and more involved. Guaranteeing optimum transparency before and after transactions is absolutely necessary for investors in the field of financial instruments. It is, therefore, desirable that a European authority is created to – impartially – examine European financial markets and to look into cases with cross-border implications, along the same lines as the recent modernisation of European competition policy. Furthermore, I call on the Commission to adopt a decision, as soon as possible, on the compatibility of Italian Government provisions with European provisions as regards the dairy sector in relation to the Parmalat case. Companies in this sector, the historic contributors to the Parmalat group have for some time been in a state of extremely serious financial liquidity, which could lead to a crisis for the whole company. If the request for help were to be deemed counter to the rules on free competition, it would be the beginning of the end for a sector that boasts tradition and is of undisputed quality at European level. The Parmalat case calls for a great sense of responsibility, above all at our level, at European level. There are three areas where we must act. I believe that we have drawn up a well-founded report and that the next Parliament will certainly be able to engage in better cooperation with the Commission.

Political group: PPE-DE