Berlin, 26 September 2016
Ladies and gentlemen,
Honourable Members of
Parliament,
I would like to thank you for
the occasion to speak to you here today.
For me, a strong cooperation
between the Brussels institutions and the National Parliaments is of utmost
importance. And the Commission and us as Commissioners have a key role here.
We face some crucial
challenges in Europe, in the area of security but also regarding our
prosperity. Only by joining forces between the Member States and the European
institutions and only by strengthening our dialogue and our mutual
understanding will we be able to identify common ground, to find solutions and
to communicate them well to the citizens who want concrete results to reassure
them that they are safe and we can help improve their lives.
In this spirit I would like to
focus on some of our key pending proposals and also inform you about an
important upcoming one.
Let me start with the European Public Prosecutor's Office, my key priority at
the moment.
We have a problem because
crime does not know borders. This goes for big scope crime against EU money and
for big cross border VAT fraud. Crime is harming our economies and decreasing
trust of tax payers. It is our duty to fight against this crime which can be
done only by joining forces. I am speaking about a pan European issue that
cannot be resolved by national authorities only.
As you might know, Eurojust
and OLAF are not equipped to lead criminal investigations or prosecutions,
national authorities are facing limits in addressing fraud cases either for
political or resources reasons. And once we enter cross-border fraud the
current ad hoc structures of judicial cooperation in criminal matters via joint
investigations teams for example are lengthy and not the best to create
expertise and know-how.
National prosecutors work well
in Germany, they prosecute cases of fraud very actively but their work is
difficult whenever they have to seize an evidence abroad, whenever this
investigation needs to take place very quickly and simultaneously in another
Member State.
The idea of the European Public
Prosecutor the way I see it is to equip us with a specialised professional body
to deal on a professional and permanent basis with financial crime in the EU.
And this matters politically
and economically. We need a European Public Prosecutor to deal with the alleged
fraud cases we all read about in cohesion countries. But we also need it to
tackle the big VAT fraud cases, especially in the cross border context. Our
estimate of around 50 bio loss in revenues per year due to VAT fraud is
conservative, the real figure is much higher. We need an effective answer to
these negative impacts on the EU budget, but also the national budgets.
Where are we on this? We are
in the final stretch of our negotiations, and the Slovak Presidency is keen to
come to a political deal on this by the end of this year. This would allow us
to formally adopt the EPPO Regulation in the Council early next year, followed
by the consent of the European Parliament. After a gradual build-up, the EPPO
could take up functions in 2019.
In the October Council we will
discuss the cost and benefits of the EPPO as it looks now – after 3 years of
negotiations. This is not only about establishing a new body, it is also about
reorganising the process to better address the challenges.
I can assure you that the
benefits of the EPPO will be higher than the costs, in particular if it is
competent to deal with big VAT fraud cases. We will hopefully make a
breakthrough on the issue of the EPPO's competence for big VAT fraud cases at
the October Council. I am planning to address this both with the Finance and
with the Justice Ministers. We would then finalise the text between October and
December.
What we need is a strong,
independent and efficient European Prosecution Office competent for all types
of crimes affecting the EU budget. We need to ensure that the
competences are clear, otherwise it will not work. Let me also stress that the
procedural rights of the defence will be safeguarded in EPPO proceedings on the
basis of national law and the EU acquis. This is of
fundamental importance. We are still finalising the discussion on the judicial
review. But it is likely to confirm the approach we proposed, ie that judicial
control will be exercised by national courts as a matter of principle with a
role for review by the European Court of Justice in certain situations only.
The European Public Prosecutor
as specialised body for financial crime is to be seen as part of our overall
structure in the European Union to combat crime effectively. It will free Eurojust
from the work they currently do on financial crime against the EU budget (so
called PIF cases) and allow Eurojust to become an even more important partner
to Europol in the fight against terrorist threats or other crimes such as
trafficking, drugs as well as in our cooperation with neighbouring countries.
We are talking for instance about Eurojust liaison officers in Turkey. We need
Eurojust to do more against smuggling of migrant and related crime in the
context of migration, against this horrible business flourishing on the misery
of people. The threats around us are serious, and we need to equip us better to
deal with it. So, EPPO and Eurojust will both have their important roles in the
EU response in combatting cross-border crime.
Let me now move on to one
further topic related to crime and security. In the context of the Security
Union and the need to address terrorist financing effectively, I also wanted to
briefly mention our proposal on the revision of the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Whilst it
remains a very important instrument we saw a need to adapt it to the new
challenges of fast-moving crime revealed recently by horrific terrorist attacks
and by the Panama scandal. We must not let criminals be one step ahead of us.
Our updated proposal will
ensure a high level of safeguards for financial flows from high-risk third
countries. It will enhance the powers of EU Financial Intelligence Units and
facilitate their cooperation. It will provide Financial Intelligence Units with
access to information through centralised bank and payment account registers or
through central data retrieval systems. It will tackle risks linked to virtual
currencies and to anonymous pre-paid instruments (such as pre-paid cards). In
addition, it will enhance the transparency of the owners of companies and
trusts. We are also stepping up our engagement with our international partners.
This proposal will improve
security for us all across the EU.
I will now turn to more
commercial files linked to the Digital Single Market and the Capital Markets
Union.
Following the finalisation of
the Data Protection Reform our pending key contribution to the Digital Single
Market are our two Digital Contracts proposals,
one relating to digital content and one relating to trade in goods.
Our goal is
to enhance cross-border e-commerce in the EU as it is still too low both from
the side of traders and from the side of the consumers. And we know that one of
the barriers relate to differences in contract law across the EU. We aim at
striking the right balance between the interests of traders and a high level of
consumer protection.
As we speak, European
companies still work with 28 different sets of consumer contract laws for
online sales of goods. Businesses spend time and money to find out about and
adapt to foreign consumer contract laws when selling cross-border. On average,
this costs them 9000 EUR per country, this is particularly burdensome for small
and medium enterprises.
Consumers also miss out on the
potential of broader choice of products and better prices. Only 12% of German
consumers buy online from other EU countries.
We tried at earlier occasions
to deal with contract law rules in the EU, the most recent example being the
European Common Sales Law. I know that you also had some reservations about
this. I want to stress that we have heard you and that we have chosen a
different approach.
We are not going for a
European civil code. Nor are we going for optional law solutions.
We have analysed very carefully what needs to be harmonised and what not. We mainly focus on remedies as key contract law rules and leave many other aspects such as prescription rules untouched.
Our idea is to focus on
targeted full harmonisation of the key parameters of a contract so that
companies can – once adopted – have their model contract in all languages based
on these rules.
This approach can be
successful only if coupled with a high level of consumer protection and a
feasible burden for sellers. Our proposals strike this balance. For the
purchase of digital content such as webstreaming, software, games and apps the
proposal will give consumers specific EU rights to have the problems fixed, the
price reduced, or even terminate the contract and be fully reimbursed. For the
purchase of goods, the proposal increases the overall EU level of consumer
protection and clarifies them. For example, in Germany the reversed burden of
proof would be increased from 6 months to 2 years, the legal guarantee for
second hand goods would also be increased to 2 years and the possibility to
terminate contracts including for minor defects would be introduced.
At the same time by removing
the current legal fragmentation, around 120,000 more businesses are likely to
sell online across borders, reaching out to more consumer markets. Around 8
million more consumers would buy online across borders. Germany's GDP is
expected to increase by about €875 million.
Both proposals are equally
important. The digital content market represents currently only a small share
of the overall e-commerce, but it sees an increasing trend and it is the area
with a the highest prospect for innovation. At the same time, around 90% of
ecommerce is in the sales of goods. We can release the economic potential of
the digital market only by lifting barriers for both sales of goods and digital
content.
We have heard criticism about
creating different regimes for the online and offline sales in goods. As we
have said from the beginning our objective is to establish a coherent regime.
Therefore, we are open to consider a widening of the scope to offline sales –
as currently discussed in the European Parliament. The Slovak Presidency as well
as the European Parliament want to discuss both proposals in parallel, and we
support them in this endeavour.
I count on your support to
help tackle these barriers to cross border online and offline commerce which is
in the interest of our traders and of our consumers.
Finally, I would like to refer
to a new initiative on business insolvency that
we will soon adopt. It will be focused on preventive restructuring frameworks
for viable companies and a second chance to making business for entrrepreneurs.
200 000 firms go bankrupt every year in the EU. This causes a loss of 1.7
million jobs each year. 49% of Europeans say they would not start a
business because of fear of failure. The fear of social stigma and
inability to pay off debts is stronger in Europe than in other parts of the
world. Moreover, debt discharge periods are much longer in Europe.
Too many viable companies,
especially those operating cross-border, are not able to restructure early
enough. Data shows that preventive restructuring allows business continuity and
ensures the highest recovery rates for creditors.
We have already revised the EU
Insolvency Regulation that will apply from June 2017. That Regulation deals
with cross-border procedural law aspects.
Our aim is to harmonise now key
principles and deliver minimum standards of substantive insolvency law across
the EU. This will not be a tight jacket to regulate the details of national law
procedures. We leave the concrete implementation of the principles to Member
States in full respect of subsidiarity.
Our initiative builds on the
Recommendation of March 2014 on a new approach to business failure and
insolvency. Its implementation has been patchy, even in Member States that
started reforming their insolvency laws.
We have worked with Member
States to improve their insolvency frameworks also under the European Semester.
However, there are limits to how much can be achieved through these methods.
Converged restructuring laws
would give greater legal certainty to cross-border investors in the EU. It
would encourage timely restructuring of viable companies in financial distress.
In our preparatory work, we
paid attention to the opinions of all stakeholders, including national
parliaments.
We also assessed recent
insolvency reforms undertaken in the Member States. I was pleased to see that
both the objectives and methods of the insolvency law reforms carried out in
Germany coincide with the ones of our upcoming EU initiative.
The amendment of the
reorganisation law which entered into force in 2012 in Germany contains vital
elements commonly appreciated as features of an efficient restructuring EU
framework. And as in the reform in Germany, I believe that honest entrepreneurs
should be discharged of their debts after a reasonable period of time.
The shorter this period is the
higher the likelihood of restarting business and ensuring innovation.
Our initiative will be
targeted and I count on good cooperation with you on it.
Today I have spoken to you
about four key initiatives which can bring promises for the future, for
economic growth, for prosperity and for security.
Thank you for your attention.
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