European internal markets commissioner Charlie McCreevy will seek to reassure companies at the end of the month that Brussels has no plans to push through new rules on corporate governance.

Speaking at this week's European CFO Summit in Monaco, Philippe Pelle said McCreevy would tell the European parliament of his priorities for the next few years, and confirm that he plans 'no big surprises' for European corporates.

The deputy head of the EC company law and corporate governance directorate told delegates: 'Most of what is needed is already on the European statute books.'
Pelle also said that the commission planned to think small first when it came to framing new business legislation and that the commission's priority was to 'simplify' existing laws not enact new ones.

'It's not just a slogan,' he said. 'It's something we have to put into practice.'
But he warned that governments would have to carry out similar reviews for any simplification programme to be effective.

'If we do screening [of legislation] in Brussels, screening has to be done in each capital or nothing will change.'

Pelle also made a number of thinly veiled criticism of Sarbanes Oxley and said that commission officials had raised concerns about its extra-territorial nature with SEC commissioners who had expressed sympathy. 'There is a lot of box-ticking to some extent and not a lot of added value in terms of internal control,' he told delegates.