Present And Future Of National Accounting Regulations Compliant With European Directives

Financial statements are the basic form to submit accounting information and they envisage the provision of information on an enterprise's financial status, performance and cash flow. The quality of financial reporting arises from accounting norms that impose a joint terminology ensuring accounting information's comparability, communication and understanding. In the European Union, the standards adopted by the Council of European Communities aim at harmonizing accounting systems, preparing and submitting annual financial statements. To apply them, member states must first incorporate them into their own legislations resorting over time to various implementation solutions, which involves certain difficulties due to economic, social and political peculiarities. In this respect, the European Parliament has adopted Directive 2013/34/EU regarding annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and associated reports of various types of enterprises. The present paper envisages a comparative study of old directives (Fourth Directive and Seventh Directive) and the new Directive.