Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of Directive 2006/48/EC to microcredit

Microcredit is generally recognised – by Member States, financial institutions, national supervisory authorities and more widely – as an effective financing channel for job creation and social inclusion, which can attenuate the adverse effects of the current financial crisis while contributing to entrepreneurship and economic growth in the EU. That is why the development of microcredit has been high on the European Commission agenda for the last few years.

In November 2007, the European Commission published its communication "A European initiative for the development of microcredit in support of growth and employment" in order to promote a more favourable environment for microcredit provision. In the past few months, the European Commission has been directly engaged with both the microcredit sector and national public authorities to identify obstacles microcredit providers face in deploying their services throughout the EU and to consider how these might be overcome and whether there is a need for regulatory action at national or EU level. The review and discussion stage led by the European Commission has included a conference organized jointly with the European Economic and Social Committee on 2 December 2011.

The willingness to develop microcredit in the EU was also shared by the EU co-legislators during the negotiation process of Directive 2009/111/EC. They requested the European Commission to review the application of Directive 2006/48/EC to microcredit. As laid down in Article 156 of the latter, the European Commission has been asked to report the results of this review to the European Parliament and the Council together with any appropriate proposals.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)769: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:769:FIN

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