He said he was near the position of Parliament

Twenty-seven should now reach agreement on the draft directive to regulate the activity of the managers of hedge funds ("hedge funds" and "private equity") while the United Kingdom there is obstacle. London indicated yesterday that the new Government would agree to the compromise prepared by the Spanish Presidency of the Union, this one even rejected some weeks ago Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister. It is a concession for the English, quitters, for the moment in any case, to establish a "European passport" which would allow managers based outside Europe to market their funds throughout the Union from the time they got permission to only one of its members for example the United Kingdom States. Remains to converge this position with that of the European Parliament, which the special commission ruled yesterday on the draft directive by voting, specifically, for the establishment of such Passport for managers of third countries. "The Commission will work to reconcile the two positions," said yesterday the Commissioner for the internal market and financial services, Michel Barnier, who hopes to find a compromise before July. He said he was "near" the position of Parliament. "I am for all fund managers equal treatment as soon as they comply with Community rules", he said. Implication, be they European or not.

More generally, the Commissioner said yesterday committed to "put on the table here at the end of the year all the proposals which should meet the commitments of the g-20" to strengthen the regulation of the financial sector. A support for the Parliament and the European Council, then, to take.

Rating agencies. Brussels will make proposals in June to entrust the supervision of agencies to the future authority of supervision of the markets which Europe intends to acquire by January 2011. But also to introduce more competition and transparency. Brussels thus want to coerce any issuer seek the rating of an agency to provide the same information to its competitors, so that they can, they also noted. The Commission also reflects on the automaticity of the consequences of the ratings on investment decisions, and works on the marking of complex products and sovereign risks.

Resolution Fund. Brussels must adopt a communication on 26 May to feed the debate at the G20. Michel Barnier has preferred to speak of a "contingency fund", which would constitute reserves to bring relief to a systemic Bank difficulties, rather than a "Fund of repair or salvage which would happen when the disaster strikes" in an automatic way, at the risk of precisely the financial institutions.

Derivatives. A text is expected "before the end of the summer" to promote the standardization and their passage through centralised compensation Chambers. "The fall, probably in October, we will adopt a more focused proposal on short selling, including the"credit default swaps"and"naked short selling"type operations, warned Michel Barnier. We deal with at this time the question of the CDS on sovereign debt. At a minimum, must be total transparency on these operations, and thus a mandatory registration. "In an interview with the"Handelsblatt", Greek Prime Minister, Georges Papandreou, said having yesterday wrote a letter to Barack Obama with Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Juncker to submit the idea of the"closure of the market"CDs. "The g-20 countries want to discuss," said Georges Papandreou.