Mr President, Commissioner, we have now reached the last item on the agenda and I hope that the crush of Members will not now be too much. What is this report about? It is about the question of precontractual information on home loans. We are in the process of creating an EU internal market by 2005, and one of the objectives is that in future cross-border home loans should be offered and taken up by customers. An agreement in the matter has been reached at European level between consumer associations and banking associations. We need that to be put into effect relatively quickly. It would be gratifying if that were to happen in less than twelve months. I would like at this point to expressly highlight the positive role played by the Commission, which managed to bring the two sides together repeatedly and in the end achieve a result in this difficult moderation process. This may become the first positive example of self-regulation in the European Union. But there are still things that need to be done. First, we must look at the moderation process itself. It took about four years and according to some participants was not always very transparent. We call on the Commission to report to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs about the experience gained from this moderation process and the conclusions to be drawn for future self-regulation processes. As I have already said, it may be a positive example. But if it proves not to be a positive example of self-regulation, the Commission really will have to put forward its own proposal for a directive. A few points are still outstanding here. Firstly, of course, we need a commitment not only from the banking associations, but we need a Europe-wide commitment from the banks themselves. The extent to which the banks will participate is an open question here. Secondly, the register that is published must of course also be posted on the Internet. We also need similar forms throughout Europe. It is already foreseeable that some Member States that were very keen on producing a standard form, especially at the outset, will want to go their own way and may take a different route in future. At all events, comparability must be preserved here, in the interests of the customer. We ought to try to extend this agreement to the candidate countries. We should also extend the mediation body you have just mentioned, Commissioner, to this field. We should not retain the internal mediation body proposed in the agreements, but follow the Commission’s initiative here. We also need comparability of data. The effective annual interest rate in particular is highly important for the consumer. The figure at the end is not the only important thing, but the basis on which it is calculated, too. The effective annual interest rate is still calculated in different ways in Europe. We should work towards getting a uniform method of calculation. I would very much welcome it if this did not have to come from the Commission, but if the banks themselves could manage to agree on a method within a very short space of time. We should then also apply all this to services offered over the Internet. We have, after all, just had the Huhne report, which also said we wanted to press forward with this. We should have this information there in future, too. And finally, as the Huhne report recommends, future legislation should be harmonised with the legal terms used in this code. In conclusion I would like to stress that I very much welcome this voluntary code of conduct. It now requires critical appraisal and monitoring. We hope the Commission will before long present the Committee with a report on how successful the code has been and whether we can continue along that road or whether we must introduce legislation.

Political group: PPE-DE