What about the part played by the accountancy in the economic competition ?

The fact that the enterprises and financial markets are becoming world wide induces harmonising the accountancy standards in order to improve the financial information of the international investors. The question is, towards which accountancy standards should this convergence be aimed ? This international standardisation is far from being a trivial problem because serious economic and politic outcomes are at stake. A plan to work out these international standards which was under way with tremendous efforts since 25 years is now speeding up and seems poised to succeed to the detriment ( who could have believed it ?) of the American standards. Jacques MANARDO and Dominique LEDOUBLE, greatly involved in this process, introduce the leading parties, the events, as well as the likely outcome of this economic competition hardly heard about.