The European Commission notified Portugal January 25 that the country has not communicated the transposition of the directive on credit managers and credit purchasers, with consumer protection safeguards, giving it two months to do so.
In a statement released today, the EU executive said that Portugal and 20 other member states (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland) “did not notify the Commission of the full transposition of these articles by the deadline of December 29, 2023,” says Lusa.
At issue is the European directive on credit servicers and credit purchasers, which creates a functional EU secondary market for non-performing loans (NPLs), establishing rules for authorization and supervision and providing a set of harmonized criteria, with the aim of creating safeguards to strengthen consumer protection.
The member states had to have adopted and published the measures transposing the directive into national law by December 29, 2023, but these 21 countries failed to do so, and so Brussels notified them today.
For not having communicated the adaptation to national law of these new European rules, Portugal now has a two-month deadline to respond to the letter of formal notice announced today by the European Commission and comply with this legislation by completing its transposition.
If it fails to do so, the EU executive may decide to issue a reasoned opinion, the next step in an infringement procedure, and take the country to court.
In the statement published today, the institution also argues that the new EU rules “ensure that the transfer of the creditor’s rights does not alter the original contractual obligation between the parties and that consumers can invoke against the buyer of the loan any defense they could have invoked against the original creditor”.
“Most importantly, the directive introduces significant forbearance measures to protect consumers, such as refinancing the credit agreement, postponing the payment of debt installments, changing the interest rate or partial forgiveness, as well as information requirements to increase transparency in the relationship with the creditor,” he concludes.