Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-13-Speech-1-104-000"
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"en.20120213.17.1-104-000"2
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"Madam President, I should like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and its Chair Ms Bowles and I would ask Corien Wortmann-Kool to send my warmest thanks to Sari Essayah for her work in cooperation with your shadow rapporteurs Sophie In’t Veld, Sven Giegold and Ivari Padar.
This is the third point we have discussed since the start of this afternoon which represents concrete progress for the single market, both for citizens and for businesses.
Payment services are simply vital for our economies. Without a payments market that works at its best, the internal market cannot live up to its full potential in terms of trade and growth. The regulation we are debating aims to speed up the implementation of SEPA (the Single Euro Payments Area), as Corien Wortmann-Kool said. The SEPA project aims to develop and is in the process of developing payments services in euro which are no longer fragmented from one country to another but common to the whole of the EU, and it replaces national payment services.
This is the perfect example, honourable Members, of financial regulation for those in the real economy: SEPA will make cross-border payments as easy as domestic ones and will provide greater reliability and security for European citizens and businesses. They will benefit from increased competition in this area and — I think — from lower payment costs. This should also increase innovation and give an additional concrete dimension to the internal market.
I want to welcome the progress made in this compromise compared to the Commission’s initial proposal. This is further proof of the real usefulness of the intelligent work we have done together, as you said Ms Wortmann-Kool, particularly during the trialogues. I notice, to my delight, that many of the Commission’s texts have been improved and clarified thanks to the work of Parliament. The report from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs prepared by Ms Essayah has therefore made a significant contribution to improving our proposal.
The new text is more favourable to consumers. I shall give you two examples: firstly, the scheduled phasing out of BIC codes from 2014, which means one less piece of information for the consumer to provide to make a transfer, whether it is a national or international transfer, and, secondly , the removal of additional charges for all cross-border payments effective as soon as the regulation enters into force.
Of course, the Commission regrets that the principle of two separate migration dates for credit transfers and direct debits has been abandoned. From our point of view, this would have helped to speed up the migration process and rewarded the most advanced Member States, providers and businesses. That being said, a single end-date should also facilitate communication on the transition to SEPA, and particularly the use of new IBAN account numbers.
Honourable Members, the Commission is therefore happy overall with the current final compromise. We are ready to look into the governance of SEPA by the end of this year — there is progress to be made — and also into the issue of consumers’ right to unconditional refunds for direct debits within the framework of the revised directive on payment services.
These two items have each been the subject of a declaration of principle, along with a third on the Commission’s use of delegated powers. As agreed, these three declarations appear in the annex of the resolution submitted to you and reflect the compromise reached in December word for word.
In conclusion, Mr President, with this regulation we are providing the payments market with the legal framework it needs. We are contributing to the creation of a truly integrated payments market in euro in the EU. Finally, we are providing European citizens and businesses with a market where payments will be made throughout the whole of the EU as quickly and efficiently as national payments, in a completely reliable way and I believe that, thanks to increased competition, this will lead to lower costs."@en1
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