Consolidated annual accounts: CBN/CNC is proposing that IAS/IFRS be mandatory for all consolidated annual accounts starting from 2007. This would impact more than 600 Belgian non-listed entities that now prepare consolidated annual accounts. Until the EU IAS regulation comes into force in 2005 (which obliges listed entities to adopt IAS/IFRS in preparing their consolidated accounts), the CBN/CNC would reform its policy with respect to the use of non-Belgian GAAP. Specifically, it would make it easier for both listed and non-listed companies to get permission to use IAS/IFRS for their consolidated financial statements and would no longer allow a company to adopt US GAAP or any other GAAP in substitution for the Belgian GAAP. As a result, entities would be able to use IAS/IFRS for their consolidated annual accounts even before 2005.

Statutory annual accounts: CBN/CNC also has proposed an ambitious plan to converge the Belgian Accounting Law with IAS/IFRS as from 2007. Taking into account the scope and the importance of this harmonisation task, the CBN foresees putting all adaptations simultaneously into effect on 1 January 2007. The CBN/CNC indicated that the adaptations to the Belgian Accounting Law would be tackled pragmatically and that the Belgian context and the scope of the entities concerned would be taken into account explicitly.

Click here for the proposal in Dutch (PDF 169k) or French (PDF 165k).

Short-Term Priorities (2003-2004)

• Modernise the 8th Directive to include principles on public oversight, external quality assurance, auditor education and independence, code of ethics, auditing standards, disciplinary sanctions, and the appointment and dismissal of statutory auditors.
• Create an EU Regulatory Committee on Audit, with power to adopt detailed binding auditing regulations (the present EU Committee on Auditing, renamed the Audit Advisory Committee, composed of representatives of Member States and of the profession, will become an advisory committee).
• Strengthen public oversight of auditors at both the member State and EU levels.
• Require International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) for all EU statutory audits from 2005.

• Improve disciplinary sanctions.
• Make audit firms and their networks more transparent, including disclosure requirements for audit firms.
• Strengthen audit committees and internal controls.
• Reinforce auditor independence and code of ethics (including seeking US recognition of the equivalence of the EU approach).
• Remove restrictions on the establishment of EU audit firms and on cross-border provision of audit services.
• Examine the economic impact of auditor liability regimes in member States.