5. Fill in the blanks with suitable prepositions

Eurocrats wonder whether, after a battle over applying comitology to securities regulation, there will be the appetite to fight for it in CAD 3. It may nonetheless be the only sensible way to recalibrate capital ratios and update concepts as the uncertain sciences … measuring credit and operational risk evolve. "What we need", mused a British regulator this week, "is a rolling directive."

British regulators are concerned that the European Commission may not meet the deadline, leaving London-based banks unable to apply Basle 2 in step with the Americans, Japanese and other non-EU banks. They are working on an answer. Happily, Britain's Financial Services Authority has always insisted … capital ratios well above the existing EU minimum of 8%. So long as banks reach that 8% floor, they can start applying Basle 2 principles to any capital charge … the minimum, without infringing existing EU law. Whether continental banks, notably in France and Germany, will be able to do the same is open to question: they have long had a habit of sailing quite a bit closer to the regulatory minimum. Many of those affected feel it is crazy to write Basle 2 into European law when it is still half-cooked. The target of the Basle committee is the internationally active banks.

6. Explain the italicized grammar constructions in the following sentences

1. The European Commission’s consultative document, adapted from Basle 2, invites comment by May 31st.

2. It has the same ambitious plans for risk measurement, but it also highlights the special need for banks to finance small and medium-size enterprises (SMES), most of which have no public credit rating (Basle 2 relies on public ratings as well as ratings used internally by banks).

3. An increased capital charge for Europe’s small banks, or heavier reporting requirements, could well raise the cost of borrowing for SMES in Europe.

4. There are fears that the directive will not be flexible or speedy enough to match.

5. It may nonetheless be the only sensible way to recalibrate capital ratios.

7. Translate the text from English into Russian in writing

Instead of setting a fixed ratio of capital to so-called risk assets, the new framework, dubbed Basle 2, will allow the most sophisticated banks to use their own measures of risk to calibrate the amount of capital they must set aside. The previous Basle framework, set in 1988, laid down clear capital charges for credit exposures according to whether the borrower was a country, a bank, or a non-bank.

Studies are in progress, and horse-trading between the big banks and regulators has only just begun. So this is not a good time to be enshrining raw and untested concepts into European law. British regulators are concerned that the European Commission may not meet the 2004 deadline, leaving London-based banks unable to apply Basle 2 in step with the Americans, Japanese and other non-EU banks.

The European Commission's consultative document has the same ambitious plans for risk measurement, but it also highlights the special need for banks to finance small and medium -size enterprises, most of which have no public credit rating.