A complete set of financial statements includes a statement of financial position, a statement of comprehensive income, a statement of cash flows, a statement of changes in equity, and notes, as provided in IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements (as revised in 2007).

The Commission should be empowered to adopt the measures necessary for the implementation of Directive 2004/109/EC in order to clarify the technical aspects of some of the definitions provided under that Directive, notably the maximum length of the usual short settlement cycle, the calendar of trading days, the circumstances under which a person should have learnt of the acquisition or disposal of voting rights, the conditions of independence to be respected by market makers and management companies; take account of technical developments in financial markets; clarify the nature of the auditor’s review, to define the minimum content of ...[+++] the condensed set of solo financial statements; elaborate further the procedures for the notification and disclosure of major holdings as well as the procedures for filing regulated information with the competent authority of the issuer’s home Member State; and define minimum standards for the dissemination of regulated information and for the setting up of storage mechanisms.

1. The minimum content of the condensed set of half-yearly financial statements, where that set is not prepared in accordance with international accounting standards adopted pursuant to the procedure provided for under Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 1606/2002, shall be in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3 of this Article.

As regards the minimum content of the condensed set of half-yearly financial statements, where that set is not prepared in accordance with international accounting standards, this should be such as to avoid giving a misleading view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss of the issuer.

For example, the Commission intends in short-term to confirm through a Directive the collective responsibility of Directors for financial statements and for key non-financial statements such as the annual corporate governance statement proposed in the Action Plan.

Discussions with Finance Ministries have shown there is a near consensus on the need for rapid progress towards a single financial reporting framework (for consolidated annual accounts) and for all listed/publicly traded companies.