By Anna McLauchlin - 11th March 2004
EU firms listed on the stockmarket may have to publish information on their companies every three months despite European Parliament opposition, sources have told EUpolitix.
Faced with pressure from member states who want increased transparency for investors, those close to the negotiations say MEPs have backed down and are likely to vote in favour of the requirement at the end of March.
"They are still talking, but parliament has accepted there will be some kind of (quarterly) reporting," one EU official told this website.
EU governments and MEPs will meet again on Friday afternoon to try to thrash out the final compromise.
An original European Commission proposal on company transparency would have required listed firms to publish their turnover as well as profit and loss figures every quarter in order to keep investors better informed.
But the UK in particular felt this would be costly and could increase 'short term-ism', where companies would use 'quick fix' measures to keep their figures up rather than concentrate on long term profitability.
After months of talks EU governments reached a compromise in November whereby companies would only have to issue general information which could influence investors, such as changes to business structure.
But at the parliament's last economic committee MEPs rejected any form of quarterly reporting.
As a result the two sides have tried to strike a deal and it now looks as though some form of mandatory quarterly reporting will become law.
The directive is a key law in the European Commission's Financial Services Action Plan which aims to create a single European financial services market by 2005.
And time is pressing if the directive is to be approved before the current parliament bows out in June.
A plenary vote planned for this week has now been postponed to the end of March.
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