support the development of the social investment market and facilitate access to finance for social enterprises by making equity, quasi-equity, loan instruments and grants of up to EUR 500 000 available to social enterprises with either an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 30 million, or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 30 million which are not themselves a collective investment undertaking.

In concrete terms, it involves introducing measures which should contribute to the greater financial stability of the banking sector, and to reducing the probability of another crisis, focusing on the following five areas: the quality of capital (increasing the quality of bank capital is undoubtedly desirable), stricter liquidity standards (the liquidity risk was shown to be significant during the crisis), countercyclical measures (the creation of additional banking capital in good times should limit excessive credit growth and consequent creation of price bubbles, such as, for example, in Spain), the introduction of a leverage ratio (this new indicator ...[+++] should contribute to the greater stability of banks, but it should include not only financial items contained in the bank’s balance sheet, but also off-balance sheet items, such as derivatives and the contingent liabilities of the bank) and, last but not least, the creation of a central counterparty for the settlement of OTC transactions, particularly in relation to greater transparency in derivatives.

The petition concerns the failure of the Irish Government adequately to redress the hardship caused by the overnight deregulation of the taxi industry, which resulted in a dramatic drop in the value of taxi licences (from 105.000 to 5.000 Irish punts) and left many such families with a massive negative equity/debt burden.

The petition concerns the failure of the Irish Government adequately to redress the hardship caused by the overnight deregulation of the taxi industry, which resulted in a dramatic drop in the value of taxi licences (from 105.000 to 5.000 Irish punts) and left many such families with a massive negative equity/debt burden.

25. Supports the voluntary publication by banks of their capital ratio, or their major financial risks and their risk management techniques, as a contribution to enhancing market discipline; however, institutions should not be asked to disclose publicly the individual minimum capital requirements set by supervisors, as to do so would risk the target ratio becoming seen effectively as a supervisory rating, causing competitive distortions;

24". exposures" for the purpose of applying Articles 48, 49 and 50 shall mean the assets and off-balance-sheet items referred to in Article 43 and in Annexes II and IV thereto, without application of the weightings or degrees of risk there provided for; the risks referred to in Annex IV must be calculated in accordance with one of the methods set out in Annex III, without application of the weightings for counterparty risk; all elements entirely covered by own funds may, with the agreement of the competent authorities, be excluded f ...[+++]rom the definition of exposures provided that such own funds are not included in the calculation of the solvency ratio or of other monitoring ratios provided for in this Directive and in other Community acts; exposures shall not include: