| KONSUMENTENKREDIT-RICHTLINIE / KONFERENZ MALTA (17./18.03.2006) - Die Förderung von Verbraucherinteressen - Kritik gegenüber Brüssel. |
Gegenseitige Anerkennung und Totalharmonisierung werden als kritisch für den nationalen Verbraucherschutz angesehen. Verbundene Geschäfte in Zukunft weniger geschützt? Verbraucherkredit und Überschuldung werden zu wichtigen Problemen auch in Malta. Programm und Referate auf der Seite des Maltesischen Verbraucherrates.
(siehe links annexed in English)
The Malta International Conference on Promoting consumer interest underlined critics on the Draft of the EU Credit Directive. Mutual recognition and maximum harmonisation were widely criticised as a foreign doctrine. Linked agreements with less protection in the future? Consumer credit and debt issues become predominant also in small states. (Programme and speeches available)
Dr. David Fabri, the leading Maltese expert on consumer law experessed the worries of a small country within the EU to be neglected in its special cultural inheritance with regard to the enormous influence of international financial markets were visible. While initially the EU was promoting consumer interest nothing alike happened during the last years. Malta is facing an enormous increase in consumer credit and debt. Default rates have come to 6% of the total outstanding credit. While the Maltese civil code still forbids all credit over 8% p.A. the banks have recently been exempted. But supervision still holds consumer credit from becoming predatory. Non-banks are factually excluded. HSBC is the dominant bank.
The international experts focussed on online-credit, discriminatory bank fees, the neglect of linked credit in the insufficient Credit Directive as well as the special situation in the Czech Republic. Reinhard Steennot from Belgium showed that the liberalisation of the Internet market has created opportunities for unregulated credit which have not come true because most consumers still lack the technical facilities to use it. But with the further spread of ´standardised internet credit the traditional principles of personal adivce and involvement, precaution as well as the right of withdrawal and effective information will be eroded. The notion of a "functional equivalent" for written statements is quite dangerous before we know what the function of written statements really are in the life of consumers.
Arnold Rosenberg from the United States talked about the exploding fee systems which especially burden weak consumers. With the Supreme Court Case Smiley versus Citibank (1996) the discussion on "unfair fees" had let to a number of theories and tests of fairness which either refer to adequate information, unequal bargaining power, to reasonable expectations of the consumer, or to the neo-liberal efficiency theory which regards the market cost and the (non-existing) average consumer but not the real customer burdened with such fees. The inexistance of the "average consumer" which now dominates the EU competition law was evoked by Rossela Incardona from Palermo. Peter Rott from Bremen criticed the mutual recognition and maximum harmonisation principle in the directive. He showed that the inconsistent regulation of linked credit on one hand in the information part of the directive and on the other in the section on the right of withdrawal will lead to a significant step back for German and other national consumer protection law.
Lipor Dupal from a Czech consumer organisation somehow represented the deviating opinion. Although showing figures on the extreme growth of consuemr and mortage credit in his country where within two years the debtload had nearly doubled and a default rate of Czech borrowers of 12% in 2004 which is presently the highest in Europe Czech consumer organisations seem to apreciate more deregulation and especially mutual recognition to create a bigger credit market in Europe. Asked by several speakers whether his country where no own bank is left could still keep its own profile in consumer protection he pointed out to the benefits of bigger markets. His own organisation is involved in educational campaigns of warning consumers to take out credit at all. "Read before you sign" is meant as a campaign in tv and newspapers to stop unconscious borrowing. Whether this will have significant success will have to be assessed in the future.
The conference showed that the discussion has just begun but that the problems are already international and that the future of European problems may well to be studied in the United States and the UK.
The speakers in the Consumer Credit Session were:
Prof. Dr. Udo Reifner (Keynote Speaker)
‘Responsible lending’;
Prof. Arnold S. Rosenberg
‘Regulation of unfair bank fees in the EU and US’;
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Steennot
‘Consumer protection relating to consumer credit agreements concluded online’;
Prof. Dr. Peter Rott
Linked Credit Agreements in EC Consumer Credit Law;
Ing. Libor Dupal
‘Read before you sign –Czech experience with running a campaign on consumer credit’; |
| ID: |
37056 |
| Autor(en): |
iff |
| Erscheinungsdatum: |
21.03.06 |
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Erzeugt: 21.03.06. Letzte Änderung: 18.04.06.
Information zum Urheberrecht der angezeigten Inhalte kann beim Institut für Finanzdienstleistungen erfragt werden. Aus fehlenden Angaben kann kein Recht zur freien Nutzung der Inhalte abgeleitet werden. |
