Mr President, Commissioner, clearing and settlement are an essential element in all securities market transactions. The Commission communication on clearing and settlement in the European Union analyses the sources of inefficiency in cross-border clearing and settlement arrangements. This inefficiency is largely due to technical requirements, market practice and the fragmentation resulting from national differences and legal barriers. It is also very important that the supervisory authorities adhere to a common approach and harmonised rules. Firstly, the technical barriers should be broken down and there should be a move towards interoperability of systems. Understandably, it is often the situation obtaining in the big Member States that serves as a basis for drafting single market directives and this sometimes seems to lead to the ‘one size fits all’ principle being applied. The solution chosen in drafting an EU securities code would not necessarily represent Europe’s single financial markets but the application of a national solution on a European scale. This principle is very poorly suited to the stock markets, which will still be characterised by their own national features well into the future. As I see it this is partly the situation dealt with by Generoso Andria in the report we are discussing today. Items 11 and 12 explore the most desirable way of organising securities trading settlement services and the relationship between the central securities depositories and the custodian banks. The message in these points, put in just a few words, is that core functions in settlement should be properly determined, and the central securities depositories and the settlement institutions should practise these with a view to making a profit and under the supervision of users, whereas those offering services must be kept separate from the others. Unfortunately I cannot agree with Mr Andria’s proposed solution on these two points. There are considerably more differences between Member States in arrangements for securities trading clearing and settlement and custodian services than in securities trading on the stock exchange. For example, in Germany securities are still kept in a physical form in vaults, whereas in Finland all securities have been converted into electronic recorded items, or book-entry securities. Owing to national laws relating to limited companies, the status of the German shareholder differs essentially from that of the Finnish shareholder in company transactions, for example. There is also a fundamental difference in the structure of central securities depositories in continental Europe on the one hand and the Nordic countries on the other, in that information on the investor in the Nordic central securities depositories is entered directly into the system and also, except in Denmark, directly into the issuer’s register of shareholders. In the systems in continental Europe custody is nominee registered, and the investor has no direct contact with the issuer. The Commission has furthermore become conscious of these differences and is approaching the matter of clearing and settlement cautiously and from a functional point of view, which is a very good thing. If a directive should be issued on this matter, the Commission’s approach, which takes account of these differences in the markets, should be adhered to. In my country, Finland, for example, Finnish issuers have, in their everyday activities, had a high opinion of value-added services based on registers of shareholders. The giant Nokia, for example, considers them to be very important. Items 11 and 12 in Mr Andria’s report correspond very much with the views of banks in certain countries in relation to clearing and settlement structures, and in that respect they reflect partially outdated thinking. Together with my colleague, Astrid Lulling, I have drafted two amendments, which are aimed at preserving the efficacy of the national markets and would make possible the existence of all structural systems and alternatives. There is a saying in English: ‘If it ain't broken, don't fix it.’ The rapporteur, Mr Andria, is trying to repair a situation here that works fine. This being the case I would like to stress the importance of accepting these two amendments, and I also hope that my group will support them.

Political group: PPE-DE