EP adopted amended proposal on Collateral Directive (1st reading)

13 December 2001

-
The European Parliament adopted the report by Fernando Perez Royo (PES, E) amending the proposal under the codecision procedure (1st reading).
The Parliament disagreed with the scope of the proposal as it felt that many small companies would be excluded. Whereas the proposal provided for both the collateral taker and provider to have a capital base of more than EUR 100 million or gross assets exceeding EUR 1000 million, the Parliament is of the opinion that this threshold is arbitrary and would leave out many companies that should also be able to benefit from the directive. It therefore deleted the threshold, thereby enabling any small company to be covered as long as the counterpart was a public authority, a central bank or a financial institution.
The elimination of this threshold would also mean that it would be unnecessary to delegate to the European Commission the power to revise the thresholds and thereby modify the scope of the directive.
Other amendments take up the question of comitology and implementing procedures in the light of the new Lamfalussy plan for the completion of the market in financial services.
See full report

© European Parliament