European Union accounting rulemakers uniformly support their principles-based system of International Financial Reporting Standards. The devil, however, seems to be in the details of putting those principles to work across an economic zone that spans 25 separate nations.
Exasperation has cropped up across Europe lately, as auditors and preparers wrestle with how to apply their own judgment of IFRS principles to their day-to-day situations. At issue is the body created to help interpret IFRS and provide specific guidance on technical points—or more precisely, critics say, why it refuses to do so.
