19-point plan emerges from EU G8 heads of state summit

  • European Union (old) Image

07 Oct 2008

The heads of state of the four EU G8 member states (France, Britain, Germany and Italy) met on 4 October 2008 at the Elysee Palace in Paris in a 'mini-summit' on global financial problems.

The four national leaders were joined by the head of the European Central Bank and the President of the European Commission. At the end of the meeting, the leaders issued a 19-Point Plan (PDF 102k) with recommendations on various matters discussed at their meeting. Point number nine dealt with accounting:

9. We will ensure that European financial institutions are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis their international competitors in terms of accounting rules and of their interpretation. In this regard, European financial institutions should be given the same rules to reclassify financial instruments from the trading book to the banking book including those already held or issued. We urge the IASB and the FASB to work quickly together on this issue in accordance with their recent announcement. We also welcome the readiness of the Commission to bring forward appropriate measures as soon as possible. This issue must be resolved by the end of the month.
The IASB has already announced that it intends immediately to reconsider the current prohibition in IAS 39 against reclassifying financial instruments (see 'step 3' in our News Story of 4 October 2008).

Related Topics

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.