The proposals and amendments of the PASOK-Movement for Change to deal with private debt and bad loans were focused on, during his presentation at the 4th meeting of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs of the Parliament on the subject of the Government’s Bill on bad loans, the party’s Speaker and Member of Parliament of Athens, Pavlos Geroulanos.

“The main reason why we are voting against the Bill on principle”, underlined Pavlos Geroulanos, “is not only that it is not a solution, it is not only that it does not provide any way out. It is that it wastes valuable and critical time for thousands of households. Whereas, we have proposed and continue to propose solutions that can provide a way out of despair for thousands of people“, and recalled the overall context of PASOK’s proposals for a way out of private debt:

1. For debts to the tax office – EFKA: Regulation of 120 installments for everyone and a 30% haircut, as long as the regulation is respected.
2. For the protection of the main residence: Restoration of the PASOK law of 2010 (Katseli law), with updated criteria and a framework of temporary protection for those who are proven to be vulnerable or whose financial situation has changed rapidly due to the ongoing crises.
3. For farmers: Protection of agricultural land that producers have as their only means of survival and is threatened with confiscation.
4. For borrowers: The borrower acquires the right to settle his debt based on the principles, criteria and solutions of the Code of Ethics and the possibility of appealing to independent committees that will control, in essence, the settlement. Also, banks and servicers must, before transferring the loan or selling it on the secondary market, make a settlement proposal to the debtor. An amendment that PASOK has submitted since 2019 and was rejected by the ND Government.
5. For loan guarantors: The liability of the guarantor to be determined based on the purchase price of the claim from the fund, at the same time to have the right to regulation with specific specifications in the event of termination of their contract and dealing with the phenomenon of abusive clauses with which the guarantor waives his rights.
6. For borrowers in Swiss francs: Relief for 80,000 families with exchange risk sharing between borrower and credit institution.
7. For the returning expatriates: A sustainable solution for the 40,000 housing loans of our compatriots.
8. For consistent borrowers-debtors (a category that no one mentions): Provision for a bold advance tax reduction (a measure with no fiscal impact) and subsidizing the interest rate increase with resources to come from the taxation of bank profits.
9. Set-off of debts to the public-EFKA, with the debtor being able to offset his debts with claims against them or when the creditor is a different body to assign them, with a simultaneous cessation of his charge, with interest or surcharges and corresponding notification.

“We can release a lot of people from the vicious circle and that is what we had and have as our immediate goal”, emphasized the PASOK Speaker, even mentioning that PASOK is proceeding with the filing of four new amendments to support borrowers, which are added to, already, a large number of relevant amendments that PASOK has submitted regarding private debt and bad loans, in recent years.

Specifically:

The first amendment concerns the extrajudicial mechanism and the mandatory participation of creditors in its process, the obligation of the creditor to justify his proposal based on the principles and criteria of the Code of Ethics, as well as the possibility of the borrower appealing to the independent Debt Settlement Committee.

The second amendment of PASOK concerns the explicit reservation of the self-evident right of borrowers to receive full information about their debt history.

The third amendment is about extending borrower protection to loans that are transferred through securitizations, not just sales.

And the fourth amendment aims to strengthen the effective implementation of the Code of Ethics of Law 4224/2013 in order for this Code, from being completely ineffective today, to become an essential tool for regulating debts, especially to prevent auctions at the expense of homes.

Mr. Geroulanos closed by thanking PASOK’s Private Debt Sector and Mr. Dimitris Spyrakos who have been working on proposals and amendments for years with a view to saving households.

“Not only for the morale of the matter but because they believed that it is not the strong banks that will save the borrowers. But the strong borrowers who will save the banks. And it is the principle we believe in and on which we based our proposals.”