Mr President, as regards my report, the arrangement is meant to be that we all agree the report being referred back to the committee without further debate and without a vote. I am, though, able to take this opportunity to give a brief explanation of what the report contains and what it aims to do. This is one of the few proposals that will directly affect every citizen in the European Union in his or her daily life, and will do so in a very sensitive area, that being money. The directive will affect you if you pay by credit card, if you hire a car, if you buy a television set on credit or if your bank account is overdrawn. At this moment, in the European Union, the consumer credit agreements currently in force account for something like a billion euros. That is why it is of the utmost importance that Parliament should handle this issue with all possible care and with a great sense of responsibility. In the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, we get the impression that the Commission’s proposal does not do justice to the importance of this issue. There has been no scrutiny of to what extent the proposal will, in effect, prevent the socially disadvantaged from getting any access whatever to loans, as substantially tighter conditions apply to checks on creditworthiness, which could result in those who particularly need credit no longer being given any. It has not been considered, either, to what extent this proposal might result in an increase in consumer credit interest rates. The Chemicals Directive, for example, is contentious enough, but at least we know what it is going to cost, which we do not with this one. Nor has there been any examination of what effects the intended restriction of consumer credit will have on consumption in the European Union, considering that consumer credit funds 13% of it. That is why the Committee on Legal Affairs has decided on an admittedly extraordinary course of action and recommended to the Commission that it withdraw the proposal, revise it in the light of all these points – there are another thirty of them in my report – and rethink the whole thing before it again comes up for debate. I can understand why some Members are saying, after the Commission has stated its unwillingness to withdraw the proposal – Mr Prodi has done so in a letter, Mr Byrne has said it time out of number – that there is little point in having another plenary vote on the whole thing. The question in fact arises as to whether there is any sense, under these circumstances, in again entrusting the Commission with the drafting of a proposal. Speaking personally, I have little confidence in its responsible departments coming up with something that we would find more manageable. I hope you do not mind me speaking in such personal terms. In view of the Commission’s refusal, in any case, to revise the proposal, I agree that we should get down to the task of rewriting the whole of the directive. I do not actually regard this as one of this House’s functions – we are meant to take policy decisions rather than to formulate individual articles – but if the Commission is proving to be so obtuse on this point, it is for us a constitutional duty, a duty that we will discharge, and, having done so, we will see to it that European consumer credit law is modern, flexible and promotes competitiveness. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE