If Charlie McCreevy’s words mean anything, hedge funds won’t have to worry about facing any new regulations in Europe. Addressing an economic affairs committee meeting of the European Parliament, McCreevy, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, said, “I don’t see a compelling case for specific EU legislation.” Indeed, McCreevy seems to appreciate the role of hedge funds. “In the main,” he says, “hedge funds are a catalyst for change and put the fear of God in management and boards of companies, which must be to the benefit of everybody.” Not everyone would agree – not least Werner Seifert, the former CEO of the Deutsche Börse, who was forced out by activist hedge funds. But even in that situation, the HFs had divine intentions: They opposed Seifert’s plan to acquire the London Stock Exchange, a move that could have destroyed shareholder value, Reuters reports. The EU may be laying off, but Germany isn’t. Bloomberg News reports that the country plans to make it more difficult for funds “to creep up on stock companies undetected,” as in the Deutsche Börse, according to the country’s deputy finance minister, Barbara Hendricks. Among the new measures is lowering from 5% to 3% the threshold at which companies need to declare their stakes in a company.