Swift moves promised to tighten EU financial rules

Sweden’s Prime Minister has promised to move quickly to secure EU agreement on ways to tighten financial regulations in the battle against the economic crisis. Fredrik Reinfeldt went to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to set out his country’s plans for the next six months, as it holds the rotating EU presidency. He put climate change and the financial crisis at the top of the list.

euronews’ Brussels reporter Sergio Cantone asked: “When it comes to financial supervision, are you thinking about a common EU body with binding powers?”

Reinfeldt answered: “European financial supervision, very clearly we need this at a time where the nation based supervision is not enough, even though (that is) also important to get in place. For instance, we learned that with the Swedish experience in the early 90s. But we also had the same kind of discussion in the G20 body which is asking the question, ‘do we need the kind of supervision where regulatory means on a global base?’ That is of course more difficult but that is probably better facing the kind of problems we are seeing here.”

But there is disagreement among member nations about the massive rescue packages governments are using to prop up their financial sectors.

Germany and Sweden have warned of trouble ahead if countries pump too much money into their economies, but France and Britain want to keep their stimulus programmes for longer.

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tags: Climate, EU Presidency, Financial Crisis