Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-03-Speech-2-616-000"
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"Mr President, honourable Members, what Mr Klute has just said in the report that he is presenting to you is very important for the fair, humanist dimension of the internal market, which I have often mentioned to you, as it is proof of our shared hope, our shared ambition to bring citizens and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) closer to this large market, even though they feel that this large market was not made for them, but that it was designed only for the big companies. That is why I have made consumer protection one of the priorities within our activities for this year.
I think that, firstly, we have to study the practical aspects of the different solutions and look at national traditions because what matters here, above all, is that there is real access to basic payment accounts. Beyond that, we must establish quality standards for the content of basic accounts, as you said yourself, Mr Klute. I will not be satisfied with a cut-price basic payment account which does not enable users to carry out the simplest operations needed for day-to-day living. At the same time, we must ensure that we do not make disproportionate demands, but I do not want this basic bank account, which we are going to work on, to be a cut-price account.
With regard to the issue of whether or not to include the possibility of an overdraft, I have no preconceived ideas. There are advantages and disadvantages and we are ready to work on the basis of the proposals that Mr Klute wanted to outline.
The third subject is the principle of affordability. In some Member States, there are basic payment accounts which entail unlimited banking costs. Furthermore, we can see that the banks which offer basic payment accounts often do so at a higher price. Can we then consider affordability to be ensured? I suspect not. I believe in the virtue of a principle of reasonable affordability, which allows for real affordability, more so than a ceiling fixed around a precise, uniform amount.
The principle of reasonable cost should therefore not stop providers from innovating and proposing diversified forms of basic payment accounts, within our common standards of course.
I am therefore quite in favour, honourable Members, of the idea of maintaining a certain amount of flexibility for Member States on the question of prices. We will have to work, and that is what I am doing, on the question of relevant information for consumers and also on possible dispute settlement mechanisms between consumers and professionals.
Finally, the last important point is the role of the Member States. We need the Member States in order to adopt this text. We must look very closely at what is being done at national level and build on what is being done best. As you know, honourable Members, some Member States are not in favour of this idea or are not enthusiastic about this initiative from the EU. We will therefore have to act in a convincing and determined way and draw up an effective, balanced proposal to persuade them to support our proposal in the Council. In any case, you can, of course, count on my own determination over the coming weeks.
A short time ago, I presented, on behalf of the Commission, three texts which are focused in this direction on investor protection, small investors, savings products, financial products, insurance products and the responsibility of depositaries, three legislative texts which will come to your table and, this evening, we are talking about the same thing: this ambition to regain confidence.
Honourable Members, it is not simply about the confidence of the markets, or the confidence of major financial institutions, or confidence in the price setting mechanism. Of course, those things are important, but today it has more to do with the confidence of citizens, of consumers, who have had many reasons to take issue with or grow tired of too many problems or crises, sometimes even cases of embezzlement in the past.
When we talk about confidence, we are talking about the subject that Mr Klute mentions in his report, a subject which is in no way anecdotal: 30 million people in Europe, 7% of the Union’s adult population, do not have a bank account; of those, at least 20% have been deprived or have not dared ask to open or re-open a personal account. Consumers must have access to payment services in order to have their place and play their part in the large European market.
That is why I welcome your work and I thank you, Mr Klute. I would also like to thank Ms Gebhardt for her work within the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) with several of your colleagues.
We have, as you know, played the game of entering into dialogue and making agreements with the Member States. In the initial stages, which perhaps you found a little long – the consultation and reflection stage – this recommendation by the Commission was only followed partially, or to varying degrees, in the Member States.
Only a few of them have put into practice certain guidelines from our recommendation. 10 or so Member States have done nothing at all following the adoption of this text, and some have acted only partially. That is why your report, Mr Klute, comes at the right time to serve as a basis, a very good basis, for the legislative proposals that I will present to you subject to the agreement of the college in November, that is, in a few weeks’ time.
I would just like to briefly mention some points that will guide our proposal. Firstly, guaranteed access for persons without a bank account. This is about the beneficiaries, of course, who are at the heart of the matter, that is, persons without access to payment services within a Member State, those who have been denied a bank account because of their social or financial situation, unemployment, debt or even because they are not residents in a Member State where they nonetheless need a bank account – I am thinking of students and seasonal workers. That is who we are talking about.
With regard to providers, should they all be required to offer basic accounts or should only some of them be required to do so? In that case, how do we determine which ones?"@en1
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