qualifying items

long and short positions in the assets referred to in Article 6 (1) (b) of Directive 89/647/EEC and in debt instruments issued by investment firms or by recognized third-country investment firms. It shall also mean long and short positions in debt instruments provided that such instruments meet the following conditions: such instruments must firstly be listed on at least one regulated market in a Member State or on a stock exchange in a third country provided that that exchange is recognized by the competent authorities of the relevant Member State; and secondly both be considered by the institution concerned to be sufficiently liquid and, because of the solvency of the issuer, be subject to a degree of default risk which is comparable to or lower than that of the assets referred to in Article 6 (1) (b) of Directive 89/647/EEC; the manner in which the instruments are assessed shall be subject to scrutiny by the competent authorities, which shall overturn the judgment of the institution if they consider that the instruments concerned are subject to too high a degree of default risk to be qualifying items. Notwithstanding the foregoing and pending further coordination, the competent authorities shall have the discretion to recognize as qualifying items instruments which are sufficiently liquid and which, because of the solvency of the issuer, are subject to a degree of default risk which is comparable to or lower than that of the assets referred to in Article 6 (1) (b) of Directive 89/647/EEC. The default risk associated with such instruments must have been evaluated at such a level by at least two credit-rating agencies recognized by the competent authorities or by only one such credit-rating agency so long as they are not rated below such a level by any other credit-rating agency recognized by the competent authorities. The competent authorities may, however, waive the condition imposed in the preceding sentence if they judge it inappropriate in the light of, for example, the characteristics of the market, the issuer, the issue, or some combination of those characteristics. Furthermore, the competent authorities shall require the institutions to apply the maximum weighting shown in Table 1 in paragraph 14 of Annex I to instruments which show a particular risk because of the insufficient solvency of the issuer or liquidity. The competent authorities of each Member State shall regularly provide the Council and the Commission with information concerning the methods used to evaluate the qualifying items, in particular the methods used to assess the degree of liquidity of the issue and the solvency of the issuer