BRUSSELS (MNI) – The European Commission will make proposals on
ways to regulate naked short selling during the summer, European
Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said on Wednesday.
Hansen was responding to questions about a letter from German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, which called for the
Commission to speed up its efforts to reform regulation of the financial
markets and make proposals ahead of a meeting for European Union finance
ministers in July.
Germany has already banned some forms of naked short selling
nationally, blaming traders for much of the recent market turbulence.
“We welcome the letter as it reinforces the push for swift
financial market reform,” Hansen told reporters, adding “We welcome the
French and the German support for this.”
She said the Commission was “in the final phase of completing
proposals on short selling” and “we hope that this can be taken forward
very swiftly.”
“The Commission is working quickly on these files… we will
present concrete proposals in the summer,” Hansen said.
She said the Commission was carrying out “focused consultations in
coming days… these focused consultations concern short selling and
derivatives.”
In their letter to the Commission, Sarkozy and Merkel wrote “there
is an urgent need for the Commission to speed up its work to establish
stricter control of markets.”
The spokeswoman said the Commission wasn’t taking the letter as a
criticism, “we see this as support for the direction taken by the
Commission and driven by the Commission.”
“It’s very clear that we are moving with determination,” she said.
–Brussels: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: MT$$$$,M$$FX$,M$$EC$,M$X$$$,M$$CR$,MGX$$$]
