The two sets of blueprints were unveiled separately by the EU's financial services chief, Michel Barnier, and its energy commissioner, Guenther Oettinger.

Barnier wants traders to disclose buying and selling of stocks, bonds and derivatives, a cap on mega-trades and power for regulators to curb the speculators suspected of driving food and energy prices to record highs in 2008.

"If someone is doing something which affects the market then he or she must be held to account," Michel Barnier, the EU commissioner in charge of the reform, told journalists.

"Hyper-speculation is scandalous." Barnier, a former French agriculture minister, proposed the new rules as France continues to push for tighter regulation of the sector, having taken over the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) top global economies.

France, the EU's biggest grain producer, wants to stem speculation on futures markets designed to help farmers guard against the risks of a poor crop by guaranteeing a payout at a fixed price.

In a parallel move to tackle energy speculators, Oettinger said rules in 2012 would stop power giants withholding energy capacity to force up prices in a market estimated to be worth about 500 billion euros ($660 billion) annually.

That should also prevent spikes in domestic energy prices.

Just as Barnier envisages giving more power to regulators, Oettinger wants a team of monitors in Slovenia to get extensive powers to collect market data and act on manipulative behavior.

"We believe there have been one or more cases where power prices were influenced by unnecessary profits from power trading," said the German commissioner.

Barnier's proposals, which could become law in 2012, are part of a sweeping reform of EU rules known as MiFID (the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive), which govern financial instruments.

Many blame financial tools such as derivatives, unchecked by regulators, for plunging the global economy into chaos.

Washington has already responded to this in a sweeping reform of finance which tightens controls and attempts to limit the dominance of market players.

Barnier will also tackle high-frequency trading, the millisecond buying and selling by computers of stocks and bonds that is suspected of triggering the flash crash in July, when US stock markets plunged, only to recover within minutes.

"This reform has been overdue because the markets broke down in the same way as banks did," said Sony Kapoor, a financial expert with London think tank Re-define.

"No one knows what is going on in the markets in Europe.

They are playing catch-up with the United States. Regulators there already know more about how the markets work." Also on Wednesday, a top US futures regulator official said he supported tougher oversight of the high-frequency trading market that is responsible for a third of the volume on regulated US futures exchanges

As part of Wednesday's proposals, the commission launched a push to raise penalties across the region for financial crimes such as insider trading, and to force national regulators to name and shame offenders.

Barnier even signaled there should be more criminal sanctions for serious wrongdoing. "People need to know if they are not complying with the rules, they will be hit hard," he said.

The Commission's proposals will need the backing of the European Parliament as well as powerful EU member states such as Germany and France.

European commodity markets are under pressure to tighten regulation as the United States pushes forward with plans to tame speculative activity.

"I don't think there is any reason why we Europeans should be any less rigorous than the Americans," Barnier said.

But many in industry think the move is misguided.

"Complaints that speculation leads to market manipulation misunderstands what drives the commodity markets, which is fundamental demand and supply," said Andrew Moorfield, head of the oil and gas division of banking group Lloyds.

The proposals bring the EU into line with US practices such as the weekly disclosure of speculative positions in futures markets.

Barnier signaled he favored position limits or caps on individual trades, something which is already in place in the US Britain has said exchanges should develop their own position management systems.