European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says he will field new proposals by the end of the month to tackle some of the actions of market speculators, who many have blamed for making the financial crisis worse.
In his first State of the Union address to parliament on Tuesday he also said that economic reform in the wake of the crisis must be accelerated and added he would propose taxes on financial activities in the next month or two.
He specifically promised measures to tackle abusive use of credit default swaps and naked short selling. Short-selling is a way of betting an asset will go down by borrowing securities and selling them in the hope of buying them cheaper later. Naked short-selling involves selling shares without first borrowing them.
