Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today is, for me, a much longed-for day. As long ago as the middle of 1999, I was appointed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market as rapporteur for the second reading of the directive concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services. We in Parliament were conscious of the urgency of this directive. We wanted to be prepared at any time for the common position. We then had to wait almost three years, however, hoping that the many attempts by several presidencies would at some point prove successful and that the Council would be able to come up with a common position. If I now propose that Parliament make only minimal changes to the Council common position, then I do so not because the long wait for the common position has worn me down but because I am deeply convinced that the Council common position is a good compromise and that the Council has moved a long way from its original starting point and done a lot to accommodate Parliament and its objections to the content of the draft directive, raised at first reading. I must also take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for the first reading, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten. I think that her report has significantly improved upon the draft directive. Many of her changes also had to be adopted by the Council and the Commission. In the explanatory statement forming part of my report, I provided a very comprehensive list of the points on which the directive has now been changed following the first reading in Parliament. I should like here just to list a few important points, as follows. The relationship to the directive on electronic commerce was clarified. The relationship to the Brussels II Regulation and the Rome Convention was clarified. The text might perhaps have been further improved, but the relationship is now clear from a legal point of view. The directive applies to all consumers. The restriction to consumers ‘resident in the territory of the Community’, criticised by Parliament at first reading, has been dropped. The list of information to be provided prior to the conclusion of the contract – a central point in the directive – includes all the points called for by Parliament and, in some cases, goes further than the latter. As a lawyer, I have attached particular importance to the fact that the compulsory cooling-off period originally provided for has been dropped. The right of withdrawal is now a general right and does not now exist only under specified conditions. The directive provides for a period of fourteen days. Previously, in the Commission’s draft, it had been seven, whereupon Parliament requested thirty. These fourteen calendar days seem acceptable, however. The consequences of withdrawal have also been determined in line with the European Parliament’s requests at first reading. The biggest discrepancies, here in Parliament too, naturally revolve around the issue of principle concerning whether we should harmonise on a maximum or minimum basis. This is, of course, not the first time that we are arguing in Parliament about these two principles. Albeit by a narrow majority, the European Parliament opted at first reading for the concept of maximum harmonisation. In the Council, there was, on the other hand, originally a very large majority in favour of the universal application of minimum harmonisation. If, in theory, maximum harmonisation now forms the basis of the common position and the Member States can only apply additional regulations in specific, precisely defined cases, that seems to me to be the only realistic compromise. In a legal environment in which, for example, we still do not have full harmonisation either in contract law or in the substantive European law governing financial services, no other decision can be made in this directive. If it is then to be determined upon whom, either the consumers or the suppliers, the risk of an alien legal system is to be imposed, I think it is still the consumer who has more difficulty bearing this risk, more difficulty, certainly, even than smaller suppliers. The directive now provides for a situation in which the risk borne by smaller suppliers and the costs incurred by them are reduced through the Commission’s providing them with information concerning additional stipulations in the Member States. When it comes to all those of my fellow MEPs who, through their amendments, have signalled that they are not prepared to compromise and are insisting that maximum harmonisation and the country of origin principle be put fully into effect, I should like, finally, to appeal to them also to consider what would happen if we were to end up in a conciliation procedure in which we would probably not succeed in finding this politically very sensitive and very elusive balance. In the end, we might possibly have no directive, and we should then be in the situation in which we are at present, in which the country of destination principle directly applies. We should then be very far, in terms both of content and of timescales, from the goals which, both independently and in conjunction with the Commission, we have set ourselves in the Financial Services Action Plan. In conclusion, I would therefore again appeal to you possibly to withdraw further amendments by way of a compromise or, as far as possible, to refrain from agreeing to amendments.

Political group: PSE