Mortgage News
Key European mortgage directive vote delayed until 2012
The next voting stage of the European Commission’s residential mortgage directive has been put on hold until early 2012, due to the level of amendments that have been put forward.
The two committees reviewing the directive, the European Parliament’s Internal Markets and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) were due to vote on the amendments on 22 November and 19 December respectively.
However, with around 1,000 amendments tabled by the two committees collectively in their intial reports, the vote will now take place in January for IMCO and February for ECON.
The European Mortgage Federation reported last month that IMCO lobbied for extra time and successfully achieved an extension. It is expected to vote in Brussels on 9 January.
Paul Broadhead, head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association (BSA), said the delay is largely due to the number of amendments that have been tabled by each committee.
“The ECON committee have tabled around 800 amendments while IMCO have 200. Once the two committees have voted there will be another vote before the European Parliament that will decide whether the amended directive will be adopted or not,” he said.
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Broadhead added: “This is expected to happen sometime in Q1 2012, but with recent delays it could be pushed back further.”