Sarkozy adds to growing political consensus for financial markets reform 

3 September 2008

PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen welcomed comments made yesterday by President Sarkozy on the need to strengthen rules governing financial institutions.

The French President is quoted by press agencies calling for a stronger EU involvement in the regulation of global financial markets. He is reported to support the idea – proposed in a report on the financial crisis by René Ricol – that politicians should take up at the highest level the issues of financial regulation and stability.

René Ricol’s proposal to set up a series of international conferences where regulators and international supervisory bodies would discuss changes in regulation is very similar to the World Financial Conference proposed by Rasmussen and other former Prime Ministers in a letter to President Sarkozy and the then Slovenian Presidency of the EU.

PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who wrote to President Sarkozy in May in a joint letter with several former Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers about the need for financial market reform, said “There is a emerging a clear political consensus on the need for reform. Nicolas Sarkozy is just the latest in a long line of senior politicians – and including many conservatives - calling for financial market reform.”

In an article published to be published tomorrow in ‘European Voice’ Rasmussen cites reform proposals made by Angela Merkel and Henry Poulson. Rasmussen writes “For the sake of our real economy, jobs, pensions, savings and our financial markets, the sooner we take sensible action the better.  The issue is not over-regulation but better regulation.”

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