The European Commission, impatient at slow progress in streamlining the region’s securities post-trading infrastructure, has asked regulators for ideas for untangling the complex web of nationally based clearing and settlement rules.

The move comes four months after Charlie Mc­Creevy, EU internal market commissioner, hit out at “endless foot-dragging” by private-sector clearers and settlement systems providers over implementing a code of conduct aimed at making them “interoper­able” with one another.