EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 21 March 2007 
at the request of the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade 
on certain provisions of a draft law amending the Law on consumer protection relating to 
Česká národní banka 
(CON/2007/8) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 23 February 2007 the European Central Bank (ECB)  received a request from the Czech Ministry of 
Industry and Trade for an opinion on certain provisi ons of the draft law amending Law No 634/1992 Coll. 
on consumer protection, Law No 40/1995 Coll. on the regulation of advertising and on the amendment of 
Law No 468/1991 Coll. on radio and television  broadcasting, and Law No 513/1991 Coll., the 
Commercial Code (hereinafter the ‘draft law’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an  opinion is based on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the 
European Community and the third indent of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 
on the consultation of the European Central Bank by  national authorities regarding draft legislative 
provisions1, as the draft law relates to a national central bank (NCB). In accordance with the first sentence 
of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of th e European Central Bank, the Governing Council has 
adopted this opinion. 
 1.
 Purpose of the draft law 
The purpose of the draft law is to transpo se the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive2 (hereinafter the 
‘Directive’) into Czech law. Since the scope of th e Directive includes financial services, the draft law 
assigns responsibility to Česká národní banka ( ČNB) to supervise compliance by the entities which are 
subject to ČNB’s supervision3 with certain obligations set out in the draft law. Specifically, under the 
draft law, ČNB will supervise compliance with: (i) the prohi bition of unfair commercial practices; (ii) the 
prohibition of discrimination against consumers; and (iii)  obligations with regard to pricing information. 
                                                 
1  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
2  Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-
consumer commercial practices in th e internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 
98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament a nd of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the 
European Parliament and of the Counc il (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Dir ective’) (OJ L 149, 11.6.2005, p. 22). 
3  Pursuant to Article 44 of the Law No 6/1993 Coll. on Česká národní banka, as amended,  these entities include banks, 
cooperative banks, electronic m oney institutions, capital market  entities, insurance corpor ations and pension funds. 
2 2. General observations 
2.1 The new consumer protection-related tasks entrusted to ČNB under the draft law are not listed 
among the functions of the NCBs specified in the St atute of the European System of Central Banks 
and of the European Central Bank. However,  as already pointed out on previous occasions4, 
without prejudice to the Governing Council’s powers under Article 14.4 of the Statute, the ECB does not consider that these new tasks would in terfere with the objectives and tasks of the 
European System of Central Banks (ESCB). It shou ld also be noted that pursuant to the last 
sentence of Article 14.4 of the Statute, these new tasks would have to be performed on the 
responsibility and liability of ČNB, and would not be regarded as being part of the ESCB’s 
functions. 
2.2 The ECB understands that the underlying  reason for allocating the above tasks to ČNB is linked to 
ČNB’s overall responsibility for s upervision of the financial market. In this context, the ECB 
considers that the new tasks may complement ČNB’s existing supervisory powers and thus 
contribute to the soundness of the financial ma rket and the preservation of confidence in the 
marketplace. However, it is important to ensure  that both prudential s upervision and consumer 
protection functions have ade quate and equal emphasis and th at appropriate organisational 
requirements are in place to ensure it. 
                                                 
4  See ECB Opinions CON/2006/47 of 13 September 2006 at the reque st of the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade on an 
amendment to the Law on Česká národní banka and CON/2006/38 of 25 July  2006 at the request of the Bank of Greece 
on a draft provision on the Bank of Greece’s powers in the field of consumer protection. 
3 3. Specific observations 
The ECB notes that ČNB will be required to commit additional resources, both human and financial, to 
carry out the new tasks referred to in the draft law. In  this regard, the ECB would like to reiterate that 
‘Member States may not put their NCBs in a position where they have insufficient financial resources to 
carry out their ESCB- or Eurosystem-related tasks, as applicable ’5. Therefore, the Czech authorities will 
need to ensure that the performance of  these additional tasks will not affect ČNB’s operational capacity to 
carry out ESCB-related tasks. 
 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.   Done at Frankfurt am Main, 21 March 2007. 
 
[signed] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                 
5  See the ECB’s Convergence Report of December 2006, p. 27.