The European Parliament is expected to vote on new, tighter regulation on hedge funds in September, two months later than expected, a key lawmaker from the assembly said Friday, according to dpa. EU politicians want to keep hedge funds on a tighter leash, after accusing them of exacerbating the 2008 financial crash and this year's euro slump. But agreement within the bloc has proved elusive, with Britain battling against burdening the City of London, Europe's largest financial centre, with overly restrictive rules. Jean-Paul Gauzes, a French conservative deputy who is in charge of steering the EU assembly's report on hedge funds, said in a statement that "the Spanish Presidency of the EU was not able to present a suitable compromise text agreeable to all sides." EU member states have already agreed on a draft regulation in May. But their set of rules must be reconciled with an alternative proposal passed by parliament at committee level, as both sides carry equal weight in the decision-making progress. Spain's rotating chairmanship of the EU ends on June 30, when Belgium will take over for the following six months. Had Madrid managed to strike a compromise deal, parliament could have voted on it during its July 5-8 plenary session in Strasbourg, France. "I have now met with the Belgian Minister of finance and the discussions were fruitful. Work will continue during the Belgian presidency and I am confident that an agreement will be reached in time for a September vote," Gauzes said. The delay is likely to prove a disappointment for the EU's commissioner for market regulation, Michel Barnier, who has repeatedly urged the two sides to strike a deal before the summer break. "We respect the need of the parliament and the Council (of EU governments) to have a few extra weeks to get this right," Barnier's spokeswoman Chantal Hughes told the German Press Agency dpa.
