EC conference on Financial Reporting and Auditing – Day 1: Financial Reporting

Day 1 of the European Commission roundtable in Brussels started - with a bang - with the opening address from Jonathan Faull - Director General for Internal Market and Services, European Commission.

Speaking to a packed room of nearly 450 international delegates, Mr Faull sent a clear and strong message that the financial crisis and economic downturn in Europe and other countries is 'still on' and, therefore, the discussions of the next couple of days would be focused on solutions.

Mr Faull’s keynote address 'A Time for Change' highlighted two areas of financial reporting, these being financial accounting standards convergence and governance around the IASB.

He stated that the EC decision to adopt IFRS in 2005 for their capital markets was 'the right one' and he recognised that 2011 should be an important year for convergence. He referred to the obvious example of the United States but talked about other countries as well. A salient point here was that whilst convergence was important it should not compromise the quality of accounting standards.

Secondly the issue of governance around the IASB was highlighted for change. It was clear the governance arrangements needed to improve and this will occur through the consultation of a paper issued by the Monitoring Board.

The widely anticipated roundtable event should provide some interesting insights into the EC's audit reform agenda, as well as IFRS, with some high profile speakers including the incoming IASB chair Hans Hoogervorst and EC Internal Markets boss Michel Barnier.

Tomorrow will cover EC audit reform and we expect strong opinions being voiced, starting with Michel Barnier (Commissioner for Internal Market and Services) at 9.45am Brussels time.

Stay tuned - much more to come.