EU en Amerika bespreken oprichting gezamenlijke kapitaalmarkt (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU and the US are moving full speed ahead toward an integrated trans-Atlantic financial market according to US treasury chief John Snow, who brushed aside talk of European post-referendum retrenchment while visiting Brussels on Tuesday (14 June).

"I think structural reforms remain at the top of the agenda", Mr Snow said, following a string of meetings with UK financial leaders, internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy and finance commissioner Joaquin Almunia to gauge European economic sentiment over the past two days.

"Europe knows it's got its share of problems - when you meet with the finance ministers and central bank governors of these countries, they all recognise something has to be done to put more growth into the system", he noted, adding that the EU is helping to create "political momentum" for economic reform at member state level.

"The goal is clear. It's to have one open integrated market for capital flows that is the most efficient in the world and sets the standard for the world", Mr Snow stated, adding "commissioner McCreevy and the FSA [Financial Services Administration] in the UK are very much on board with this. We need to harmonise across the UK, the EU and the US at a very high standard".

The treasury chief said that integrating US and EU capital markets could boost the blocs' respective GDPs by 1-3 percent, giving each worker the equivalent of one month's extra wages each year, while combating common problems such as budget deficits, inadequate pension provisions and sluggish growth in the face of China, India, Brasil, Russia and South Africa.

He added that the world economy is in "pretty darn good shape" but problems of divergent economic trends in individual blocs or countries could hold back further growth.

Mr Snow's remarks were echoed by the German deputy finance minister Caio Koch-Weser, who told MEPs on Tuesday that the French and Dutch referendums did not have a negative impact on the financial sector, but that differences between a sluggish Italian economy and a faster growing Germany could hold back the eurozone recovery.

Time is money

The trans-Atlantic dialogue is currently focusing on corporate governance and auditing rules, retail banking regulations, insurance company solvency and making it easier for European firms to delist from the New York stock exchange.

A spokesman for Charlie McCreevy noted that the EU and US seem set to reach agreement on single book-keeping standards by the end of the year, but the US treasury boss declined to add any dates to the "roadmap" despite some criticism from the Brussels business lobby.

"It's going on step by step, month by month", he noted.

Douglas Gregory, vice president of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa told Mr Snow at a meeting of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) that the cost of double compliance with separate US and European auditing rules could see the firm "pinched" for hundreds of millions of dollars shortly before harmonisation comes in.

Mr Snow acknowledged that the status quo could boost costs for individual firms and called on the EU to take a common sense approach to enforcing rules that could become obsolete in the next few years.

But the treasury head used the CEPS meeting to stress his belief that the post-Enron free market model needs to be balanced by strong business ethics and financial controls over corporate chiefs.

"Growth is always led by the private sector, but the private sector can't do it unless the rules of the road are conducive to good competitive, wealth-creating, risk-taking sorts of behaviour", he stated.

"If you believe in corporate capitalism as I do, as an engine of real progress for civilisation, then you want to protect it. But it depends on trust", Mr Snow said.