The proposal for a revised directive on consumer financial services contracts concluded at a distance is expected to be the subject of an EU Council position at the Competitiveness Council on Thursday 2 March based on the latest compromise prepared by the Swedish Presidency, but two delegations - Italy and Luxembourg - have issues with the text, although they do not intend to oppose the Council’s position.
The Swedish Presidency’s latest compromise sought to strike a balance between high consumer protection and legal certainty for businesses in the internal market, with regard to this legislative proposal which updates and replaces Directive 2002/65/EC on the distance selling of financial services to take account of the digitalisation of retail financial services (see EUROPE 13116/8).
Italy and Luxembourg are not convinced that the expected level of legal certainty is sufficient, judging by statements they intend to table in the minutes of the Competitiveness Council on 2 March on this issue. The statements seen by EUROPE relate to this concern.
Italy’s main concern is the correct application of the lex specialis/subsidiarity.
According to this Member State, where an EU sectoral legal act regulates a specific financial service, the sectoral discipline should in any case prevail over the future directive under consideration, for the sake of clarity and legal certainty. If this directive were to apply to products/services already regulated by sectoral legislation, this would call into question the choices already made by the legislator in each sector, this Member State stresses. Furthermore, Italy would prefer for financial services to be regulated in this future directive only to the extent that they are already qualified as such by national or European legislation.
Luxembourg regrets that, despite harmonisation, key provisions allow Member States to introduce new barriers into the internal market.
See the statements: https://aeur.eu/f/5ij (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)