Today the European Commission has published its proposal amending the regulation on Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) from 2009. Wolf Klinz (FDP, Germany), author of the European Parliament's report on the future regulation of CRAs which was adopted in June 2011, commented:

"Do not shoot the messenger, CRAs cannot be blamed for everything. However, there is a need for immediate action due to key weaknesses in the system. We need more transparency, accountability and less reliance on external credit ratings as well as increasing competition in the sector. The current case of France shows how dependent markets are on external credit ratings. We will have to carefully assess if the Commission's proposal credibly addresses this problem. Reducing over-reliance is of the utmost importance in this matter, we need to restore investors' ability and willingness to conduct their own due diligence and risk assessment".

The European Commission's proposal takes on board many of the points raised in the European Parliament's own report on CRAs. It introduces civil liability for CRAs, a European Rating Index (EURIX) and it proposes various measures aimed at reducing remaining conflicts of interest.  On the call for measures to reduce the quasi-oligopolistic industry structure Mr Klinz concluded: "Unfortunately the Commission did not follow the Parliament's request to conduct a detailed impact assessment on the establishment of an independent and autonomous European Credit Rating Foundation to foster competition".