Verbatim report of proceedings

Friday, 24 April 2009 - Strasbourg

Cross-border payments in the Community - The business of electronic money institutions (debate)

  José Manuel García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (ES) Madam President, I am going to comment only on the regulation on cross-border payments and the report drawn up by Mrs Starkevičiūtė.

The regulation, as she has explained very well, responds to the needs that have been perceived as a result of the introduction of the euro, and lays down a relatively clear principle: charges must be the same for domestic payments as for cross-border payments. This is a common-sense rule in an internal market, but one that was far from being adhered to prior to this regulation.

The regulation has thus become a launch-pad for the Single Euro Payments Area, to which the rapporteur also referred, and I therefore have some additional observations.

With time, this regulation has become outdated and it has been necessary to revise it in order to adapt it to the changes on the financial markets and also to the directive on payment services.

The Commission set itself three goals in this revision: firstly, to include cross-border direct debits within the regulation’s scope; secondly, to establish procedures for the out-of-court handling of problems that might arise from the application of the regulation; and, thirdly, to ease the balance-of-payments statistical reporting obligations.

The European Parliament has, on the whole, agreed with this approach, but it has made three significant changes: a clarification to the legal definitions laid down by the regulation, a warning or reminder to the Member States that they should comply with the regulation more effectively than they have done in the past and, thirdly, a call for significant cooperation between the Member States.

My concern was the issue of balance-of-payments statistical obligations, which has been resolved by agreement between the separate institutions. I can therefore say that I am fully satisfied with the result achieved.