Barbara Weiler (S&D, DE) speaks to the press about the late payment Directive, in the European Parlament in Brussels.

Brussels

press conference

WEILER, Barbara (S&D, DE)

Late payment Directive: extracts of the press conference by Barbara WEILER (S&D, DE)

SOUNDBITE (German), Barbara WEILER (S&amp;D, DE), We are very pleased that finally after enormous amount of work under the previous presidency, under the Belgian Presidency we are very pleased to achieve such promising results. Now the Belgian presidency has been very good to us and it was on Friday that we managed to make some progress but we managed to swing things to the side of the Parliament, we mnanaged to get those points which where important to us.

SOUNDBITE (German), Barbara WEILER (S&amp;D, DE), The most important for us in the Parliament is that 30day period , this is a red line, this is what we need to focus on. Payments after 30 days , that was our red line , we made this clear, we worked together as the Commission wished, on the public sector but we widened to our approach to private enterprises as well that the be to be payments, now it's clear that for the public sector we've got a 60 day limit but for private enterprise we needed to make it clear that without setting a deadline it would impossible to go any further we had to set a 30 day limit.

SOUNDBITE (German), Barbara WEILER (S&amp;D, DE), Interest that is paid on a late payment. The Council proposed 7 % for late payment then 5 % penalty. the Parliament decided that we should not have the penalty, rather we should go for a 9% interest rate on a late payment .now the COuncil really dug their feet in &acute;here they did not even want to accept the 7 % they wanted to go for a lower figure but I am vey happy indeed that Council finally listened to the EP and we have 8 %.

SOUNDBITE (German), Barbara WEILER (S&amp;D, DE), The Council took our views on another point as well, the cost for an overdraft over 40 euros. we were going to look at a percentage, but instead we decided to go for a fixed charge.

SOUNDBITE (German), Barbara WEILER (S&amp;D, DE), Hospitals are still involved, we had allowed for a derogation or an exemption for commercial transactions between private clinics and hospitals and suppliers and also public hospitals, that has not changed. they asked for that specifically and they agreed with me to the right provisions for public and privzate hospitals in the Directive. It will be optional ,it will be up to Member States to decide in this area.