A controversial part of an EU directive, dubbed the Vulture Fund Directive by critics, has been scrapped.
The European Commission had included the Accelerated Extrajudicial Collateral Enforcement (AECE) mechanism in the Credit Servicers and Credit Purchasers Directive to address high levels of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the EU.
The Accelerated Extrajudicial Collateral Enforcement (AECE) mechanism ostensibly would have allowed banks and other financial institutions to bypass certain court and legal proceedings when seizing collateral from defaulting business borrowers.
Sinn Féin MEP for Ireland South, Kathleen Funchion, called this a "small victory" for those opposing what she described as the vulture fund agenda.
She argued that the mechanism could have allowed banks and vulture funds to skip the legal process entirely in some cases.
MEP Funchion also criticised the EU’s impact on Ireland’s housing crisis, urging it to ease its fiscal rules on housing.
She also called for European Investment Bank (EIB) funding for housing to be maintained, rather than shifting investment towards arms and defence.
