8th Asia- Europe Meeting (ASEM) remarks by President Herman VAN ROMPUY

More effec­tive glob­al finan­cial and eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance
remarks by
Pres­i­dent Her­man VAN ROMPUY after the first day of the 8th Asia- Europe Meet­ing (ASEM)
Today we had a very fruit­ful dis­cus­sion dur­ing the first work­ing ses­sion of the 8th ASEM Sum­mit. Mov­ing towards a more effec­tive glob­al finan­cial and eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance remains a most impor­tant pri­or­i­ty. I thank all the Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment present for their con­tri­bu­tions and sug­ges­tions.

Dur­ing our pre­vi­ous meet­ing in Bei­jing we wit­nessed the dire effects of the cri­sis as well as the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of our finan­cial sys­tems. Our actions tak­en eased the eco­nom­ic recov­ery. Today our chal­lenge is to deal with the long term effects of the cri­sis and to adopt mea­sures in order to avoid the rep­e­ti­tion of sim­i­lar eco­nom­ic problems. 

Against this back­ground, we agreed to give fur­ther momen­tum to the coop­er­a­tion between Asia and Europe. We aim to reach strong, sus­tain­able and bal­anced and inclu­sive growth in both Asia and in Europe, while strength­en­ing con­fi­dence in the finan­cial mar­ket and pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic progress in devel­op­ing countries. 

ASEM mem­bers will work towards struc­tur­al reforms whilst reduc­ing exces­sive pub­lic deficits, non-sus­tain­able debts and devel­op­ment gaps. We wel­comed the pack­ages of mea­sures imple­ment­ed by both Euro­pean and Asian mem­bers to cur­tail the pro­longed out­comes of the crisis. 

We reaf­firmed our com­mit­ment to deliv­er on the pro­ject­ed reforms in the field of finan­cial reg­u­la­tion and super­vi­sion. We agreed on the need to elim­i­nate exces­sive lever­age prac­tices, the need to improve super­vi­so­ry and cri­sis man­age­ment process, to strength­en over-the-counter deriv­a­tives reg­u­la­tion, and to improve reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight of finan­cial firms, hedge funds and cred­it-rat­ing agencies. 

We also agreed that it is essen­tial to improve the cred­i­bil­i­ty, effec­tive­ness and legit­i­ma­cy of the IMF. In this regard we sup­port the Fund’s efforts to update its man­date and to clar­i­fy its role and respon­si­bil­i­ties in the over­all sur­veil­lance and preser­va­tion of the sta­bil­i­ty of the inter­na­tion­al mon­e­tary and finan­cial system. 

More­over, we sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the IMF quo­ta reform by the G20 Sum­mit of Novem­ber, to ade­quate­ly reflect the rel­a­tive weight and respon­si­bil­i­ties of the IMF mem­bers in the world econ­o­my. The IMF quo­ta shares must be shift­ed to dynam­ic emerg­ing mar­kets and devel­op­ing coun­tries by at least 5% from over­rep­re­sent­ed to under­rep­re­sent­ed coun­tries. We recog­nise that, in par­al­lel, wider gov­er­nance issues should be addressed. We wel­come the deci­sion on the World Bank’s voice reform, which will increase the vot­ing pow­er of devel­op­ing and tran­si­tion countries. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union 

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