European Parliament resolution on a legal framework for a single payment area (2003/2101(INI))
Date: 2004-04-21
Institutions: Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, European Parliament
Subjects: EU law, Economic and Monetary Union, approximation of laws, euro, frontier region, intra-EU payment, single market

C 104 E/722

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

30.4.2004

Wednesday 21 April 2004

12.
Reassures the citizens of Cyprus that the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are
willing to provide financial support for the implementation of the settlement and the ‘acquis communaut-
aire’; welcomes the positive result of the high-level pre-donors’ conference on 15 April 2004 as an import-
ant signal of the solidarity of the European and international community;

Assures both sides that the EU institutions will rigorously guarantee with other international insti-

13.
tutions the implementation of the settlement as this is a question touching upon their own credibility;

Confirms its intention actively to monitor the implementation of the Annan Plan, through its com-

14.
petent committee, and to make its contribution to the guaranteeing of the plan;

15.
Instructs its President to forward this resolution to all parties to the negotiation process, the Council
and Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Republic of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, and the
UN Secretary-General.

P5_TA(2004)0348

Single payment area

European Parliament resolution on a legal framework for a single payment area (2003/2101(INI))

The European Parliament,

(cid:1) having regard to the Commission communication to the European Parliament and the Council con-

cerning a ‘New Legal Framework for Payments in the Internal Market’ (COM(2003) 718),

(cid:1) having regard to the European Central Bank’s progress report of 26 June 2003 entitled ‘Towards a

Single Euro Payments Area’,

(cid:1) having regard to the European Payments Council’s White Paper entitled ‘Euroland: Our Single Payment

Area’ of May 2002 (1),

(cid:1) having regard to the hearing of experts organised on 20 January 2004 by the Committee on Econ-

omic and Monetary Affairs,

(cid:1) having regard to Rule 163 of its Rules of Procedure,

(cid:1) having regard to the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the opinion of

the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (A5-0192/2004),

A. whereas the reliable and efficient processing of all cross-border payment transactions in the European
Union is essential for completion of the internal market and, therefore, a single euro payments area
should, as far as possible, be achieved before the banking industry’s 2010 target date,

B. whereas, especially since the European Payments Council was set up in 2002, the European banking
industry has made significant efforts to press ahead with the notion of a single payment area; whereas,
however, putting plans into practice, such as, for instance, the implementation of agreed standards, is
still causing difficulties,

C. whereas the situation as regards cross-border retail payments in the European Union continues to be
unsatisfactory and citizens making cross-border payments continue to encounter difficulties which
they do not face with purely national transactions,

(1) http://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.org/

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 104 E/723

Wednesday 21 April 2004

D. whereas a coherent legal framework for retail payments is needed at European level which incorpor-
ates and consolidates the host of existing rules, eliminates legal uncertainty and inconsistencies and
closes regulatory gaps,

E. whereas, following the enlargement of the European Union, the legal framework will have to encom-
pass more national systems and procedures and whereas the accession countries will not introduce the
euro until a number of years have elapsed, at the earliest,

1. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to establish the legal prerequisites for the creation of a single
retail payments area in the European Union; points out, however, that Community rules should be formu-
lated in such a way that the efficiency of national systems and procedures is not impaired;

Considers that customers must be provided with a set of convenient, cheap, reliable and predictable

2.
instruments of payment;

3.
Calls on the Commission to produce economic studies at an early date with a view to clarifying what
is at stake and what options might be pursued as regards, among other things, infrastructure, interoper-
ability and interbanking;

4.
Considers that, given the unsatisfactory current situation in the European payment area, at the tech-
nical level the necessary legal measures must be taken in order to establish an efficient, effective European
payment system;

5.
Calls on the Commission, when implementing the individual components of the legal framework, to
choose in each case the legal instrument which involves the least regulatory intervention in order to realise
the objective; takes the view that, wherever it appears practical and feasible, there should be self-regulation
by market participants;

Considers that,

in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity,

6.
if self-regulation fails or proves
inefficient, priority for the regulation of the operation of the European payment area must be given to
directives and then to regulations, to ensure that legal measures will take effect at the same time and in the
same way throughout the European Union;

Considers that regulation of cross-border euro payments must conform to the principles that con-
7.
sumers must invariably incur the same costs as at national level and that the proper national authorities
must be the first to be called upon to ascertain that the measures laid down are being effectively imple-
mented in each country;

8. Maintains that this implies a clear definition by the institutions of the European Union of the objec-
tives and the implementation schedule and monitoring of implementation by the economic stakeholders;

Takes the view that prudential rules to which payment service providers are subject should be made
9.
more uniform throughout Europe in order to ensure a level playing field; considers that further fragment-
ing of prudential supervision provisions or a lowering of prudential supervision standards must be pre-
vented; takes the view that, in the interests of all parties concerned (consumers, traders and banks), the
creation of a new role, that of payment service provider, must not lead to any diminution, in physical,
prudential, financial and economic terms, of the security of the means of payment issued in the market;

10.
Calls on the Commission to monitor with the utmost vigilance trends in respect of mergers between
payment service providers; notes that in some areas, e.g. credit cards, the market is dominated by a small
number of firms operating from a dominant position;

11. Welcomes the Commission’s intention to include both cross-border and purely domestic payments
in the legal framework; calls for the scope of the legal framework to be extended from 2006 to all intra-EU
euro payments of up to EUR 50 000; calls for uniform rules governing transactions in other EU currencies;

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30.4.2004

Wednesday 21 April 2004

12.
Believes that the legal rules governing money transfers in the euro zone need to be amended and
strengthened, especially as regards the amounts transferred, which must be credited in full to the payee’s
account, and that the time taken to execute such transfers should not exceed six working days, to be
reduced to three working days as from 2008;

13.
Considers it necessary to improve the legal certainty and technical security of payments in the euro
zone, given that consumers are entitled to expect that, within the internal market, they will be protected to
the same degree as they are in their country of origin;

14. Welcomes the intention of the European banking industry and of the Commission to establish a
pan-European direct-debit scheme;

15. Maintains that, in the bank card sector, where cross-border operations are far more satisfactory, one
priority must be to introduce second-generation smart cards across the board, without falling behind the
schedule laid down, in order to make such cards safer to use throughout the European Union;

Regards it as essential that bank customers be given the most important information in a succinct,

16.
comprehensible form;

17.
Regards the promotion of customer mobility as essential in the interests of proper competition;
calls on the banking industry to submit proposals for a standardised data communication procedure
(standing orders, direct debits) in order to make it easier for customers to move accounts; calls for charges
for closing accounts to be made transparent very rapidly;

18.
Advocates, in the interests of legal certainty and the cost-efficient processing of payment orders,
early irrevocability (that is, before the transfer is initiated) of payment instructions given directly to a
payment service provider (transfers); in the case of direct-debit payments, however, calls for provisions
making it possible to revoke them over a longer period, in particular where the amount to be paid cannot
be specified by the customer when giving the payment instruction;

19. Welcomes the objective of promoting distance selling and Internet selling throughout the European
Union; rejects the notion of making payment service providers accountable in the event of disputes
between traders and customers, whether by means of rules on liability or extended cancellation rights for
customers; insists, rather, on clear demarcation between the basic transaction and the payment; takes the
view that the development of (optional) safeguard systems (for example, the use of escrow accounts)
should be left to the market;

20.
Takes the view that payment service providers should be responsible for the accurate execution of
instructions from customers, in accordance with the national laws of the Member States, and should bear
the burden of proof once the instruction enters their domain; rejects any extension of strict liability; is of
the opinion, however, that within the legal relationship with customers as regards errors of selection, the
liability of service providers should also extend to the selection of other intermediary firms and technical
facilities used; suggests that, by way of self-regulation, banking associations, payment network operators
and traders should adopt a procedure for settling questions of internal liability promptly; takes the view
that the appraisal of liability, where a question of consequential damage or force majeure arises, should be
left to national courts;

Suggests that when a payment card has been fraudulently used by a third party, the liability of the
21.
cardholder (cid:1) limited to a given amount (cid:1) should apply, depending on the seriousness of the case and the
degree to which the cardholder is at fault, only if specifically defined obligations have been infringed;
considers that a cardholder should on no account be held liable once he has informed the payment service
company that his card has been wrongfully used, and that the payment service provider must furnish
evidence of such notifications, especially those made by telephone;

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Official Journal of the European Union

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Wednesday 21 April 2004

22.
Calls for the legal framework to enshrine the principle that, whatever means of payment is used, the
full amount specified in the payment order must be credited to the recipient’s account without deduction
unless the recipient has expressly entered into a different arrangement with his bank, in which case the
amount and type of deduction must be disclosed to the recipient;

23. Welcomes the Commission proposal, regarding Special Recommendation VII of
the Financial
Action Task Force on Money Laundering, to define the European Union as an integrated legal framework;
takes the view, however, that threshold values should be introduced for cash transfers; notes that ‘effective
risk-based procedures … to identify any transfers … which lack the required originator information’ are
technically impossible to achieve;

24.
Urges the banking industry to enhance on-line banking security continually, in collaboration with
the IT industry and supervisory authorities, and to give customers comprehensible information about risks
and the precautions to be taken;

25.
Recognises the benefit that a reduction in the maximum execution time for credit transfers from six
working days to three working days would bring to consumers; agrees with the Commission, however,
that non-euro cross-border credit transfers are not technically ready to be put on the same level as credit
transfers executed in euros, although non-euro cross-border transfers should aim to reach the same level as
soon as possible;

26. Welcomes any alternative dispute resolution arrangements that might help to avert protracted liti-
gation; considers that if voluntary dispute resolution fails to settle disputes quickly and cannot secure
effective complaint and redress procedures for consumers, dispute resolution arrangements should be
made compulsory in the Member States and at European level;

27.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and Commission.

P5_TA(2004)0349

Integrated product policy

European Parliament resolution on the communication from the Commission to the Council and
the European Parliament on Integrated Product Policy (cid:1) Building on Environmental Life-Cycle
Thinking (COM(2003) 302 (cid:1) C5-0550/2003 (cid:1) 2003/2221(INI))

The European Parliament,

(cid:1) having regard to the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parlia-

ment (COM(2003) 302 (cid:1) C5-0550/2003),

(cid:1) having regard to the Sixth Community Environmental Action Programme (1),

(cid:1) having regard to the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes for Community Research, Technological

Development and Demonstration Activities,

(cid:1) having regard to the Lisbon Process launched by the Göteborg European Council on 15/16 June

2001,

(cid:1) having regard to Directive 98/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February
1998 amending Directive 93/38/EEC coordinating the procurement procedures of entities oparating in
the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (2),

(cid:1) having regard to the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establish-
ing a framework for the setting of Eco-design requirements for Energy-Using Products and amending
Council Directive 92/42/EEC (COM(2003) 453),

(1) OJ L 242, 10.9.2002, p. 1.
(2) OJ L 101, 1.4.1998, p. 1.