After a brief historical introduction, the paper examines the true and fair view (TFV) requirement in the Fourth Directive, and in the corresponding company legislation in UK, France and Germany. Differences and nuances are explore from a language and translation viewpoint and also related to pre-Fourth Directive requirements and culture. The extent of true harmonization is questionable. Recent experience and usage of TFV in the UK is critically described and related to the broader European context. The general drift of the argument is that countries are tending to interpret TFV in the context of national culture, national accounting tradition and national GAAP. From a properly European perspective there is a need for changes in attitude from all concerned. TFV and GAAP are living and dynamic concepts. They are affected by the cultures within which they are used. Homogeneous attitudes to such concepts imply homogeneous cultural contexts, and this raises questions of a most fundamental nature.
