Financial Reporting in Europe: Future Challenges

Abstract

A roundtable at the 11th workshop of the European Financial Reporting Research Group (EUFIN) on Friday 4 September 2015 in Paris brought together leading participants in the development and enforcement of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the use of IFRS financial statements to debate the future challenges in European financial reporting. The panellists were Philippe Danjou, a board member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), Roxana Damianov, team leader for corporate reporting at the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and Jacques de Greling, senior equity analyst at Natixis, vice-chairman of the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS) financial accounting commission, member of the IASB's capital markets advisory group and member of the user panel of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG). The panel was chaired by David Cairns. None of the panellists presented formal papers but instead spoke and debated freely about a range of current and future challenges. Not surprisingly, they focussed on the challenges arising from the use of IFRS in the consolidated financial statements by EU companies listed on EU regulated markets rather than the challenges that might arise from the use of EU or national requirements in non-IFRS financial statements.

This paper provides a synthesis of the panel discussions in the context of the European Commission's evaluation of the International Accounting Standards (IAS) Regulation, the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation's (IFRSF) review of its own and the IASB's structure and effectiveness, and the ongoing work of the IASB and ESMA.