The European Commission made the following statement in a press release issued in 2002:

European Commission has welcomed the Council’s adoption, in a single reading, of the Regulation requiring listed companies, including banks and insurance companies, to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with International Accounting Standards (IAS) from 2005 onwards (see IP/01/200 and MEMO/01/40). The Regulation will help eliminate barriers to cross-border trading in securities by ensuring that company accounts throughout the EU are more reliable and transparent and that they can be more easily compared. This will in turn increase market efficiency and reduce the cost of raising capital for companies, ultimately improving competitiveness and helping boost growth.

You are required to evaluate the above statement. In particular you should consider whether the adoption of IFRS in different countries, with different overview and enforcement mechanisms, necessarily leads to the generation of financial information that is more ‘reliable’ and ‘comparable’.