Commissioner Mario Monti has given his support to the set up of a European fund management organisation, first mooted by the UK's Institutional Fund Managers' Association (IFMA).

A meeting to discuss the set up of a pan-EU association will be held in London this month and representatives of 40 fund management firms, of which about half will be from continental Europe, are expected to attend.

The IFMA met with Commissioner Monti at a 'discussion dinner' host-ed by UK MEP Graham Mather of the Economic Policy Forum at the end of June. Monti indicated that a Europe-wide body would carry more weight with the Commission than a purely UK organisation.

Speaking about next month's meeting, Michael Haag, secretary of IFMA's Europe and International sub-committee said: The main purpose is to see if it would be useful to set up some kind of European equivalent to IFMA but with a remit to represent the interests of fund managers across Europe to bodies that affect their interests in particular to Brussels' based legislators: the Commission and Parliament which affect the framework within which they operate.""