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Europaudvalget 2006-07
2787 - økofin Bilag 4
Offentligt

6. marts 2007

Referat af rådsmødet (ECOFIN) den 27. februar 2007

Dagsordenspunkt:

Stabilitets- og konvergensprogrammer

Rådet vedtog udtalelser om stabilitetsprogrammer for Tyskland, Grækenland,

Frankrig, Irland, Italien, Luxembourg, Nederlandene, Portugal, Slovenien og Fin-

land samt konvergensprogrammer for Danmark, Estland, Cypern, Litauen, Un-

garn, Malta, Polen, Slovakiet, Sverige og Storbritannien.

Rådet drøftede Kommissionens vurdering af programmerne – særligt vedr. lande-

nes mellemfristede mål for de offentlige finanser og opfyldelse heraf. Der var

enighed om, at medlemslandene bør benytte de aktuelt ”gode tider” til at styrke de

strukturelle forbedringer og sikre langsigtet holdbarhed af de offentlige finanser

samt undgå procyklisk finanspolitik.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Proceduren for uforholdsmæssigt store underskud

vedr. Polen

Rådet vedtog en henstilling under Traktatens artikel 104.7, som pålægger Polen at

bringe sit offentlige budgetunderskud ned under 3 pct. af BNP i 2007 og at gen-

nemføre strukturelle saldoforbedringer på minimum 0,5 pct. af BNP.

Henstillingen anbefaler således, at Polens inden den 27. august 2007 iværksætter

effektive tiltag til reduktion af underskuddet og at Polen gennemfører fortsatte

årlige budgetkonsolideringer med henblik på at nå sit mellemfristede mål om et

strukturelt underskud på 1 pct. af BNP.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Forberedelse af DER den 7.-8. marts 2007:

Key Issues Paper og opdatering af de overordnede

økonomisk-politiske retningelinier (BEPG)

Som led i forberedelserne til Det Europæiske Råds topmøde den 7.-8. marts 2007,

nåede Rådet til enighed om et Key Issues Paper, der beskriver de overordnede

prioriteter for Rådets (ECOFIN) arbejde for at sikre beskæftigelse, vækst og vel-

stand i EU.

Ministrene drøftede særligt et afsnit om skattepolitik, der peger på, at bedre sam-

arbejde på skatteområdet kan forbedre det indre markeds funktion og henviser til

det igangværende arbejde på området.

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Rådet enedes desuden om et udkast til en 2007-opdatering af de overordnede

økonomisk-politiske retningslinier (BEPG), som i år ledsages af landespecifikke

anbefalinger. Udkastet ventes forelagt på Det Europæiske Råd den 7.-8. marts

2007.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Forberedelse af DER den 7.-8. marts 2007:

Bedre regulering

Rådet vedtog konklusioner (jf.

vedlagte bilag),

som byder Kommissionens hand-

lingsplan for reduktioner i de administrative byrder i EU og de foreløbige frem-

skridt mht. måling og reduktion af disse byrder for virksomhederne i EU vel-

kommen. I Rådskonklusionerne anbefales det, at de administrative byrder, som

pålægges de europæiske virksomheder som følge af EU-regulering, reduceres med

25 pct. i 2012.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Revisionsrettens årsberetning for 2005

Rådet havde en drøftelse af Revisionsrettens årsberetning for 2005. Flere lande,

herunder Danmark, fremhævede, at det er utilfredsstillende, at Revisionsretten

endnu en gang har måttet give en revisionserklæring med væsentlige forbehold,

men at der dog er fremskridt at spore. Det fremhævedes at man støtter Kommis-

sionen i bestræbelserne på at gennemføre bedre intern kontrol, ved hjælp af bl.a.

større åbenhed i processen, og derved med tiden opnå en positiv DAS. Rådet

vedtog derefter en henstilling til Europa-Parlamentet om meddelelse af decharge

til Kommissionen for gennemførelse af budgettet.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Clearing og afvikling – ”Code of conduct”

Rådet blev af Kommissionen præsenteret for de foreløbige resultater af imple-

menteringen af adfærdskodeksen for clearing og afvikling af værdipapirer, som

aktørerne på markedet for finansielle tjenesteydelser enedes om i efteråret 2006.

Kodeksen har haft en lovende start, og Kommissionen vil følge op på dens im-

plementering og vil forelægge resultaterne heraf for Rådet.

Dagsordenspunkt:

Clearing og afvikling – TARGET 2 Securities

ECB informerede Rådet om sine overvejelser om en fælleseuropæisk platform for

clearing og afvikling af værdipapirer i euro – det såkaldte TARGET2Securities.

Der blev vedtaget Rådskonklusioner herom (jf.

vedlagte bilag).

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Diverse:

I margin af mødet drøftedes den økonomiske situation i EU og formanden for

eurogruppen afrapporterede om gruppens møde den 26. februar 2007. Man havde

på dette møde bl.a. drøftet eurolandenes stabilitetsprogrammer og udkastene til

Rådets udtalelser om disse programmer.

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Bilag:

Rådskonklusioner om bedre regulering

"The Spring European Council in 2006 invited the Commission to launch an ex-

ercise to measure administrative costs associated with EU rules in specific areas.

On 2 October 2006 the Council supported the Commission’s strategy to further

develop a method for measuring administrative costs and asked to propose ac-

tions for the reduction of administrative burdens. On 14 November 2006 the

Commission reported on progress in its “Strategic Review of Better Regulation in

the European Union” and proposed to launch an ambitious Action Programme to

be presented in early 2007. After presentation of the “Action Programme for Re-

ducing Unnecessary administrative burdens in the European Union” the Council

(ECOFIN) held an orientation debate on 30 January 2007. Based on this prepara-

tory work,

The Council:

welcomes the Commission´s Action Programme for Reducing Administra-

tive Burdens in the EU, noting that reducing the administrative burden is

part of a wider better regulation agenda which includes simplification of leg-

islation, wider use of economic impact assessment, and other efforts to re-

duce unnecessary compliance costs for business. The programme underlines

the commitment to Better Regulation as a part of the Lisbon Strategy for

Growth and Jobs, and highlights the need for prompt action in order to

make rapid progress. The reduction of unnecessary administrative burdens

is a central element of the strategy for strengthening competitiveness and

supporting growth and employment in Europe. The Council stresses that

the reduction of administrative burdens needs to safeguard the political aims

of the legislation in the priority areas, taking into account its benefits, and

that the reduction of administrative burdens aims at improving regulation to

encourage competition, competitiveness and productivity.

welcomes the progress made both at Member States and EU level towards

measuring and reducing administrative burdens in the EU. It welcomes the

methodological basis of the Action Programme and endorses the principles

and priority actions for reducing administrative burdens. Focusing on priori-

ty areas to rapidly reduce the administrative burden on business is the cor-

rect approach. The Council calls upon the Commission and the Member

States to closely work together in order to promptly put the programme into

action and solve remaining open questions.

recommends that the Commission should continue using systematically the

agreed “EU-Standard Cost Model” to measure information obligations in

the priority areas. It invites Member States to cooperate closely also with

the Commission in measuring burdens associated with Community legisla-

tion in order to ensure consistency and comparability and to avoid duplica-

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tion and overlap. It invites the Commission to begin with the measurements

in early Summer 2007.

emphasizes that a substantial reduction in administrative burdens should

enable companies to raise their productivity levels. The Council invites the

European Council to clearly affirm this common ambition since this will

help to focus efforts in reducing administrative burdens. It supports a re-

duction target of 25% for administrative burdens arising from EU legisla-

tion to be achieved by 2012. The Council invites Member States to commit

to pass on benefits of administrative burdens reduction in transposition and

set their own ambitious national targets by 2008, taking into account differ-

ent starting positions and regulatory traditions. The Council invites Member

States to closely collaborate amongst each other and with the Commission

in order to identify and disseminate good practices.

requests the Commission to continuously report on the progress with the

reduction exercise and the application of the EU-Standard Cost Model and

invites Member States to report on experiences with measuring and reduc-

ing administrative burden in their National Reform Programmes. It encour-

ages the Commission to further explore possibilities to include citizens and

national administrations as beneficiaries of the reduction of administrative

burdens. The Council will return to the issue of administrative burdens later

in the year to assess progress especially in areas of its responsibility and pro-

vide further guidance as necessary."

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Rådskonklusioner om Clearing og afvikling – TARGET 2 Securities

"The Council:

RECALLS that the clearing and settlement of securities transactions is

a key area of financial integration in the European Union, where sub-

stantial progress needs to be achieved to enhance both the efficiency

and soundness of post-trading services in line with the Council conclu-

sions of 28 November 2006;

WELCOMES that the Eurosystem shares this aim and has to this effect

undertaken work on the TARGET2-Securities (T2S) project with a view

to providing a common settlement engine capable of settling securities in

central bank money in euro, and WELCOMES the information provided

by the ECB on the functioning of T2S through published material and

consultations with market participants;

WELCOMES the Eurosystem's intention to take a final decision on the

launch of T2S after consideration of the issues below and completion of

the feasibility study;

NOTES that the scope of the T2S project is restricted only to the set-

tlement layer of the post-trading activity regarding securities settled in

central bank money and does not involve custody services, asset servic-

ing, corporate actions and all the other activities which are, and which

remain separated economic activities, performed by the Central Securi-

ties Depositories;

Since T2S would have a profound impact on the securities settlement

infrastructure, the Council INVITES the ECB to proceed step by step,

examine carefully the results of the consultation and take in particular

the following aspects into account when deciding on the way forward

on T2S:



The business case should be clearly proven based on well-defined user

requirements and well-founded economic data on the whole service

process, including realistic project development costs; in particular the

new facility should allow the settlement of cross-border and national

transactions at an end-to-end cost lower than the lowest cost in the

EU;

The success of the project will hinge upon its capacity to satisfy mar-

ket needs of all affected parties. Participation in T2S should not be

compulsory and access to central bank money should not be restricted

for non-participants, who should be able to continue to perform set-

tlement in central bank money and provide related collateral;

The design and operation of the project should comply with EU com-

petition policy and aim at promoting competition and innovation in



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post-trading services, so as to ensure that efficiency gains through en-

hanced competition in post-trading services are passed to end users,

including issuers.

STRESSES the importance of the following principles in the way forward

on T2S:



T2S should be open to non-euro area Central Securities Depositories

and currencies, subject to agreement between the concerned parties;

The existing securities settlement systems as they are currently operat-

ed, either interfaced or integrated, should not be put into question dur-

ing the migration phase until T2S is implemented; thus the migration

phase should be competitively neutral;

The governance structure, for the development and the future opera-

tion of T2S respectively, should provide solutions for the handling of

potential conflicts of interest (to that effect a separate legal entity

could be considered as a way of distinguishing between the operation

and supervision of the system);

The governance structure should adequately involve all affected mar-

ket participants from across the EU and ensure responsiveness to

market needs and provide for accountability and transparency;

The supervisory arrangements applying to Central Securities Deposito-

ries should remain safe and efficient, and the implications of T2S for

these arrangements should therefore be analysed to that end;

The legal implications of reconciling T2S with existing national juris-

dictions should be clearly analysed;

The technical specifications should enable both direct and indirect

holdings of securities in T2S, with the same efficiency and costs.

Consider continuing its policy of transparency as appropriate also in all

future stages of pursuing the project;

Report back regularly to the FSC, the EFC and the Council on the

progress on the T2S project, starting with the results of the consulta-

tion process in 2007 before a final decision is taken."



INVITES the ECB to:

