German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/215, p.
27182.
Generally in the first instance, we are sceptical in regards
guidelines from Brussels. This is meanwhile simply a matter of experience. That
these as a requirement are less decisive than are the EU’s decrees, yields for
us in Germany mighty little; since by means of the so-called gold-plating, that
is, the excess fulfillment of requirements, we as a rule happily restrict
ourselves to above what is due.
In regards the previous implementation of the consumer credit
guidelines presently here in focus, the legislature however wants,
exceptionally for once, to save itself, and perhaps even the consumer, a little
work. Information concerning consumer loans can of course in reality assume a
volume which in the best case will be filed away by the borrower, yet is
scarcely read through. The so-called cascade reproof in the law should really
save text and paper. It is, according to a decision of March of last year of
the EuGH [European Court of Justice],
inadmissible.
The clarity of the information in my opinion also speaks to
that. Not every citizen gladly reads in the evening over a glass of wine or a
cup of coffee prohibition boxes in the legal formulation conveyed by the EU.
Here, the first judgment’s implementation, so far as the the EuGH is
authoritative for us, is clearly to be agreed to.
The tradition of model [mustergültigen]
information surrounding consumer law, and thus this appendix with models, is to
be expressly welcomed; a possible European legal cancellation is to be
rejected.
The questions of state liability or a new basis for
restitution according to the ZPO [code
of civil procedure] will certainly not be taken up here by the Federal
government. Yet this is always fungible: Every kowtow before the EuGH which is not made, is good exercise
for strengthening the backbone.
Stefan Schmidt (Greens): Hui!
Furthermore, as is known, a judgment from 2019 should be implemented
to explicitly extend to special costs not dependent on term within §501 of the BGB [civil code] – to the benefit of
consumers, at least in regards to previous repayment. Clearly, the banks and
the savings banks are shooting at this regulation. They want a limitation to
the so-called costs directly connected to the issue of the loans.
I also find it at least interesting that the Ministry has
certainly not packed up all comments on this on its home page. There, of
course, banks and savings banks bring up the example that a borrower’s building
insurance must be repaid by one-third as a contractual obligation of the bank;
thus, around the corner if occasion arises, proportionally. Admittedly, this
would be questionable. The insurance coverage is on an entirely different level
of performance and has already furnished an objective use to the borrower.
Otherwise, one formulation of §501 would have been, in my
opinion, more clear; the Federal government in regards the factual circumstance
for a revocation instruction, has retreated…Yet consistency is perhaps too much
to ask for in the simultaneous implementation of two equivalent judgments.
For all that, a differentiated development of the law in
connection with a new §501 of the BGB
can then certainly be relied upon. German courts of course can clearly do that
better than the EuGH. Absolutely
illogical costs, the quasi-contract, and thus combined contracts, would be
feigned – as in the aforementioned example – and ought then be refused by means
of case law [Rechtsprechung]. Clarity
as a service performance: This is apparently necessary.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
