The Commission on Tuesday (18 December) presented a much-anticipated White Paper on Mortgage Credit, which lays out a package of measures to "improve efficiency and competitiveness of EU residential mortgage markets". These objectives are to be achieved by:
- Facilitating cross-border supply;
- increasing the diversity of products;
- improving consumer confidence, and;
- facilitating customer mobility.
These non-legislative measures are notably aimed at tackling the issues of land registration, property valuation and forced sales procedures.
The Commission will undertake individual impact assessments to assess the need for legislation on key issues such as early repayment, which is a particularly sensitive aspect among member states, and test the water to see whether a compromise on a European regime is possible.
Nevertheless, the EU executive stopped short of proposing "hard" legislation in the form of a directive as foreseen in an earlier draft of the white paper. According to Conservative MEP John Purvis, this was watered down following a "controversy within the Commission", resulting in what seems "more like another green paper than a white paper".
The Commission says it has not completely ruled out proposing legislative measures in the future. However, talking to EurActiv, Commission spokesperson Oliver Drewes said that the EU executive would only regulate if "substantial advantages to a substantial number of consumers" were economically proven.
