The European Commission estimates that 63% of cross-border debt is not recovered, mainly due to bureaucratic obstacles and legal uncertainty.
Overall, the debt written off by EU business amounts to €55 billion a year, according to an internal paper by the EU executive.
However, procedures to recover domestic debt vary widely from one country to another. Legal certainty is therefore not always guaranteed for cross-border claims, since creditors may face completely different legal systems and rules.
"I want to make the recovery of cross-border debts as easy as recovering debts domestically. Trust is the currency of our single market," Commissioner Reding told EurActiv in an emailed statement.
A European order to freeze bank accounts may serve this purpose. It would introduce a simple common procedure allowing creditors across the EU to block a foreign bank account owned by a long-term debtor.
Single market
The measure is seen as an important tool to boost cross-border business activities within the single market. A survey carried out by the Commission in summer 2010 revealed that about 70% of companies interviewed considered that problems recovering debt in another country constitute an obstacle to engaging in cross-border activities.
A simple freezing order may reassure companies and eliminate a powerful deterrent from operating abroad, thus boosting the EU single market.
"I would expect that the Commission could come forward with concrete proposals in this field in the first half of 2011," Martin Selmayr, the head of Reding's cabinet, told a panel of experts recently. A proposal in this direction is listed under Commissioner Reding's top priorities for 2011.
In its proposals, Reding is likely to call for partial seizure of bank accounts. "Limiting the attachment to a maximum amount was the favoured option in most of the replies" to the Green Paper on bank account attachments, the Commission says in a working paper.
Banks wary
Banks are the main opponents of this plan because they fear they will be forced to bear the cost of monitoring and eventually blocking the accounts of clients hit by a freezing order.
To allay their concerns, the Commission is thinking of making debtors themselves pay for the extra cost. The maximum amount to be frozen "should include the amount of the claim, the legal fees and any interest. To simplify matters, the amount of the claim could be increased by a fixed percentage to cover costs and interest," reads the Commission document.
Reding's future proposals are part of a wider Commission plan to improve market conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU.
On Wednesday (23 February), the Commission will publish a review of the Small Business Act, which is the legal framework for a number of pro-small business initiatives, including provisions to promote timely payments.
