In early August, the European Commission ruled in favour of Latvia in a dispute between the Baltic country and Sweden over deposit guarantee schemes.
In an interstate dispute based on Article 259 TFEU, the Latvian authorities are of the opinion that their Swedish counterparts have infringed the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive (2014/49). According to the Commission, the Swedish guarantee scheme should have paid to the Latvian guarantee scheme certain contributions previously paid to the Swedish scheme by the branch of a Swedish bank based in Latvia when the bank joined the Latvian scheme following a restructuring of the banking group.
Under EU law, in the event of a change in membership of a deposit guarantee scheme, the home country scheme must transfer to the host country scheme the contributions received from that bank in the 12 months prior to the change of membership.
In a reasoned opinion, the Commission considers that the Swedish authorities have not applied the Directive correctly. It considers that the period during which contributions are collected should be taken into account and not the dates of payment of contributions to a deposit guarantee scheme.
If the parties fail to settle their dispute, the aggrieved party may decide to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)