Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-480"
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"en.20090311.42.3-480"2
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"−
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Commissioner, the European Parliament, under the authority of our rapporteur, Mr Gauzès, has been very committed to ensuring that the legislative measures necessary for implementing the SEPA – Single Euro Payments Area – project come into existence.
The Directorate-General for Competition has indicated, in some cases, that it considers this piece of legislation to be contrary to the competition rules, but then it believes that it is up to the industry to find an alternative solution. The fact is, the alternative solutions that exist at Member State level have not been tested by the Directorate-General for Competition. Therefore, there is no way of knowing whether the Directorate-General for Competition could support them, or whether some of the solutions are appropriate for the problems we face.
For example, imagine that financing an interchange system relied on penalties imposed under the legislation, that is to say, on errors committed. In practice, this would very often mean making the most vulnerable people pay, and that does not seem to me to be reasonable or socially just.
I therefore call on the Commission to take action on two important points: to fix an end date for migration and to help develop an alternative system or a system that is acceptable from the point of view of the rules of the Treaty on interchange.
When we drew up the accompanying legislation, the Directive on Payment Services, we asked ourselves some questions. We now realise that these questions were probably justified.
Now that this project is to be launched, we have some concerns, because we do not have the impression that the level of mobilisation, which it seems to me has nothing to do with the challenges of the crisis, has not quite materialised as it should have done.
The fact is, this project, which has received a great deal of support from those in the sector and from the legislator but which, above all, must provide a modern payment tool that is suited to the circumstances of our single currency, the euro, is in danger of not achieving the critical mass that it should have in order to be fully effective.
We are particularly concerned that the launch of the SEPA Direct Debit scheme, which is undoubtedly one of the most original aspects of this project, is running into some difficulties.
We feel that, in view of the Commission’s responsibility, there are two questions to be asked. Firstly, how does the Commission intend to promote and support migration to the SEPA payment instruments? A timescale had been fixed, and it is obvious that it does not take all the practicalities into account. Secondly, is the Commission of the opinion that the migration of a critical mass of transactions to the SEPA instruments should have been achieved by 2010, and, if not, what should be done to achieve this?
When we adopted this legislation, we did not decide on a clear and binding end date for migration to the SEPA instruments. We think it is undoubtedly time to do so. We understand that some questions still remain about the compatibility of national systems with the SEPA system and about what is meant by definitive migration, but we feel that it is the Commission’s responsibility to support the industry in finding solutions to the questions they still have.
Next, there is the matter of interchange fees, which clearly has been ignored or neglected, when, for many players, it is absolutely central to the success of the SEPA project. From this point of view, it sometimes seems that, among the various competent bodies, be they in the professional banking sector, the Internal Market and Services Directorate-General or the Directorate-General for Competition, we are passing the buck somewhat.
Perhaps it is part of the legislator’s responsibility to talk with these players and to demand some sense of responsibility from them. We feel that, at this stage, we cannot call a consistent piece of legislation into question without supporting the market operators in their efforts to develop an alternative system. This is precisely the difficulty we have with this issue of interchange fees."@en1
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