Deadlock on payment directive

16 November 2006

The adoption of the future directive on payment services which is planned to be adopted in first reading seems to be deadlocked. The fourth meeting between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council seem to have not progressed at all.

ECON Committee’s Gauzés report asked the Council to give its opinion, but the latter is having difficulty reaching an agreement. Although it would appear that a majority seems to be emerging in favour of postponing the execution of payments to D+1+derogations - instead of D+2 for everybody without derogations as proposed by the Parliament - the deadlock in view of creating a statute for the new banking establishments is unmoving.

Unless a clear position can be reached between member states under the Finnish EU Presidency, the Parliament may be able to adopt the report on first reading, at the risk of extending the debates with the Council into 2007 before reaching agreement. But time is running out: the new directive is very closely linked to the implementation of the single payment market scheduled for 2008.

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