The Results of the Maystadt Review are Revealed

Philippe Maystadt, the special advisor, has discussed his review findings regarding the EU IFRS endorsement at the European Parliament with stakeholders. In March this year Michel Barnier, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services appointed Mr Maystadt as a special adviser. His main role was the evaluation of whether the EU's adoption system regarding IFRS was effective, and whether it allowed the EU to play its part in the debate.

After Mt Maystadt presented his final recommendations on November 15 at ECOFIN's council meeting, he discussed these recommendations for the first time. He explained how they could progress with the EU stakeholders during a meeting which was organised by the Federation of European Accountants, FEE and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, ACCA. The event was held at the European Parliament and the host was Dr Wolf Klinz, MEP.

The round table allowed a lively discussion to take place. There was a panel of stakeholders who were representatives from national standard setters, EFRAG, preparers, and business and investment communities from the accountancy sector. They debated issues including how to reinforce the contribution the EU gave to IFRS as well as how to improve the way they were governing the current structures within the fields of accounting and financial reporting.

Wolf Klinz has said that accountancy is not just a technical subject, but also one that is highly political and one that has a huge impact on real economies. The current financial crisis has demonstrated that rules in accounting do matter, and when it comes to the right valuation it's particularly critical. He added that it was in the best interests of Europe to have a set of accountancy rules which were homogeneous as this would allow accounts to be compared between not only different companies but also between member states.