Second, we have to make the European investment fund industry more globally competitive.

Indeed, any such pan-European market will itself be an appropriate means of channelling European investment funds.

The original UCITS Directive was the key to development for European investment funds.

It is true that, in comparison with the American market, European investment funds are characterised by their small size, a consequence of which are the high costs for investors.

With buying by American and European investment funds, shares in oil producers, other energy companies and even GUM, the Moscow department store, had surged.

In this respect, the European Investment Fund is turning risk capital into an important Community institution as a complement to the market forces which govern supply and demand.

Firstly, we have the European Technology Force "start-up initiative' which is a venture capital mechanism run by the European Investment Fund.

In December 2002, Pfizer sold the Tetra aquaristic and pond business to the "Triton Fund", a private independent European investment fund.

As before, current and the future Community schemes entrusted to the European Investment Fund will be managed separately from its own resources under the principle set and controlled by the Commission services.

As far as geographical and sectoral coverage is concerned, the European Investment Fund has managed to achieve relatively satisfactory coverage of all countries despite the recession on all the money markets.

But Argentina has not been lost on European investment funds, and it has several world-class corporations that have easy access to the capital markets, including Perez-Companc, Techint and Bunge & Born.

Frank Borriello, an analyst at BB Biotech, a European investment fund that owns 4 percent of ImClone, said: "What I really wish is that they'd all learn to work together.

Bank Austria A.G., Austria's largest bank, said yesterday that it had sold a 51 percent stake in its eastern European investment fund unit to Alliance Capital Management L.P. of the United States.

Mr President, the European investment fund industry is re-inventing itself: cross-border competition is taking root; fund managers and service companies are merging; distribution systems are opening up and new products are being offered to retail investors.

On Wednesday, Mr. Maxwell announced that he was in a partnership with Merrill Lynch to set up a $250 million Central and Eastern European investment fund in Budapest, the national news agency M.T.I. reported.

The British scandal has focused on European investment funds managed by Morgan Grenfell, a unit of Deutsche Bank; Morgan Grenfell has said the valuations of some unlisted stocks in those funds were apparently inflated.

As Mr. Jordan puts the final pieces for his new venture into place - he is still negotiating with several American and European investment funds that will become minority partners - he is also coming to grips with his decision to go native.

I am calling for a European investment fund to be set up, which will enable the creative producers we have in Europe to at long last enter into real competition with America, in a manner which fully meets with the requirements of the free market.

The scandal erupted in London in early September when Morgan Grenfell's fund management unit said it had discovered "possible irregularities" in the valuation of several unlisted stocks that made up large parts of the portfolios of three European investment funds it managed.

Mr. Roye also said that his division would propose a rule requiring mutual funds to have 80 percent of their portfolios invested in the style, asset class or region indicated by the name of the fund, so that a European investment fund, for example, would have to be 80 percent invested in Europe.