Newly issued instruments shall only be considered in the assessment when historical data covers a period of at least three months in the case of shares, depositary receipts, ETFs, certificates and other similar financial instruments, and six weeks in the case of bonds, structured finance products and derivatives.

Even though the addition of the issuance principle by the Commission is to be welcomed, the exemption of OTC derivatives opens a loophole, which could prove detrimental for the success of the tax.

It includes the EMIR Directive (concerned with clearing of OTC derivatives), the MiFID II Directive (to improve the competitiveness of financial markets, codes of conduct with which investment enterprises must comply), the CRD IV Directive (banking supervision: incorporation of the Basel III agreements into the EU's supervisory framework), the Solvency II Directive (supervisory regime for insurers, replacing and incorporating a number of insurance directives to create a single framework directive) and an FTT (financial transaction tax).

On behalf of my group, I would like to say that integration capacity functions, not as a barrier against future enlargements, but as a precondition for them; a necessary precondition, moreover, and not merely a by-product of our thinking when we alter this or that detail in an accession treaty, something that will no longer be acceptable in future.

The strategy proposes to fight illegal logging and timber trafficking, as well as trade in other illegally harvested forest products (e.g. game and bush-meat), by addressing the following areas for action: Developing transparent procedures as a basis for issuing concessions and utilisation licences; establishing effective control and penalty mechanisms (law enforcement); ensuring civil society participation in these processes; creating incentives in import countries for public and private procurement of independently certified timber and wood products from sustainable forest management; and assisting partner countries with their effo ...[+++]rts to implement and further develop the CITES endangered species convention (particularly protection of the endangered species listed and inclusion of further species in Annex 3).

This problem, in conjunction with the inability to monitor the rapid developments in biotechnology and the production of GMOs and their products, led to reservations and a moratorium over the last three years on the marketing authorisation procedures at EU level, pending the adoption of an integrated traceability and labelling system.