International Accounting Standards Board chairman Sir David Tweedie has defended the organization’s response to the financial crisis in front of a meeting of European ministers in Luxembourg.

Tweedie told European Union finance ministers that he “took very seriously” their concerns about “the pace and substance” of IASB’s accounting standards reform. And he conceded that the board must “do a better job” of keeping European politicians up-to-date on how the board is responding to their accounting concerns.

IASB has come under intense criticism from European politicians for not changing its accounting standards fast enough and for failing to respond to FASB rule changes that they think give U.S. banks a competitive advantage over European rivals.

Tweedie reiterated his pledge to speed up an overhaul of IAS 39, Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement, so that key parts (but not all) of a new standard will be ready to use by the end of this year.

He also argued that some in the U.S. banking community felt that FASB rule changes had actually given European banks an advantage, rather than the other way around. But he added: “Given the urgency of the fundamental issues surrounding IAS 39, we cannot afford the potential protracted back-and-forth between IASB and the United States, which could undermine the comprehensive and desperately needed revision of this standard.”

Tweedie went out of his way to praise the European politicians for their support of IASB’s International Financial Reporting Standards. It was as “a direct result of [their] leadership” that over 100 countries around the world permitted the use of IFRS, he said, adding that it was “crucial” to the success of IFRS that Europe remains committed.

Those comments reflect growing concern that some European politicians want the European Union to abandon IFRS. The U.K.’s Financial Reporting Council said in its recent annual report that it had “significant concerns” that the EU might adopt its own version of IFRS rather than the standards as published by IASB.

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