The delegation of the European Union (EU) indicated that the European Commission (EC) has not considered the details of the draft law on the development bank and since it has not yet been adopted, its next consideration next week is an opportunity for the Parliament to harmonize it with all EU acquis.
This was officially told to "Vijesta" from the EU Delegation in Podgorica regarding whether the parliament should obtain the opinion of the EC when it comes to the proposal of this law, before re-voting.
It is about a bill submitted to the parliamentary procedure by deputies of the "Europe Now" Movement. On August 17th, at an extraordinary session, MPs voted for this bill, but on August 23rd, President Jakov Milatović returned it to the parliament for a re-decision, among other things, which excluded from the legislative process consultations with the European Commission (EC) for the purpose of harmonizing norms. of the Act with European standards. A new statement is scheduled in parliament for September 12.
"The Law on the Development Bank of Montenegro has not yet been adopted, since the President returned it to the Parliament for reconsideration. The EC was aware of the principle intention to establish a development bank in Montenegro, but at this moment it did not consider the details of that law. The next review of the law is an opportunity for the Assembly to ensure that the new law is fully compliant with all aspects of the EU acquis, including those that define competition and the framework of the functioning of lending and payment institutions," said the EU Delegation.
The previous practice in the parliament was that the deputies did not re-discuss the laws returned by the former and current presidents, but only voted on them again.
In its opinion, the Central Bank (CBCG) pointed out that it is not harmonized with European directives in the part that refers to the collection of deposits and the performance of payment operations, and that an opinion should be obtained from the EC.
The proposal defines that the development bank performs the activity of receiving deposits, and that the law and other regulations governing the establishment, operations and control of credit institutions (banks) are not applied to it, except for the regulations whose application is determined by this law.
The CBCG indicates that in Directive 2013/36/EU of the European Parliament and the Council of June 26, 2013 on access to the activities of credit institutions and prudential supervision of credit institutions, amending Directive 2002/87/EC and repealing Directive 2006/48 /EC and 2006/49/EC (so-called CRD) stated that the scope of application of the regulations relating to credit institutions should be as broad as possible and should include all institutions whose activity is receiving refunds from the public in the form of deposits or other forms.
"Exceptions to the application of this Directive are agreed in advance between the member states and established in Article 2 of the Directive, where all institutions at the level of an individual member state to which the provisions of the directive do not apply are exhaustively listed. These are mainly credit unions, development banks and export banks, whose obligations are guaranteed by the member states themselves. Bearing in mind the above, the CBCG is of the opinion that in relation to the issue of the performance of deposit-taking activities by the development bank, the opinion of the EC should be obtained", the CBCG pointed out.
The supreme monetary institution says that the question arises as to whether establishing the authorization for the development bank to carry out the activity of receiving deposits will endanger one of the basic principles of the functioning of development state financial institutions, i.e. the principle of non-competition with the banking sector.
Another controversial issue pointed out by the CBCG is that the draft law stipulates that the development bank performs payment services in accordance with a special law.
"We point out that the EU regulations regulating the provision of payment services, i.e. the Payment Services Directive (the so-called PSD2), which represents the "full harmonization directive" (a directive that member states cannot restrict or introduce provisions different from those are established by that directive), expressly established payment service providers and others cannot be determined. This directive does not allow payment service providers, i.e. payment transactions, to be entities such as the proposed development bank," said the CBCG.
It was also clarified that the Law on Payment Transactions stipulates that the execution of payment transactions with money received from users of payment services for the purpose of providing payment services is performed by the payment institution through transaction accounts opened with banks.
"In this regard, we point out that in accordance with Article 5 of the Law on the Prevention of Illegal Business, legal entities and entrepreneurs are required to open a bank account in the manner established by regulations, keep funds in that account and transfer funds through that account, including payment taxes, surcharges and contributions on the calculated gross salary and salary compensation, as well as the payment of net salary and salary compensation to employees. Therefore, the aforementioned actions from the domain of providing payment services could not be carried out by the Development Bank", stated the CBCG, adding that the regulations on the operations of several development banks in the area do not establish the possibility of providing payment services.
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