Facing a slew of reforms that could impact the ability to serve their communities, members of the European Network of Credit Unions (ENCU) spent the past two weeks urging various European Union (EU) policymakers to apply proportional treatment to credit unions on several items coming up in the European Parliament’s legislative term.

ENCU conducted the virtual outreach effort with representatives from the offices of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Member States in the Council of the European Union, DG FISMA, DG JUST and other offices in the European Union.

Eight European credit union associations and World Council of Credit Unions comprise ENCU, which serves as a platform to exchange information, ideas and strategies between countries—and speak as a unified voice on European policy and regulatory matters affecting credit unions.

ENCU is working to ensure the credit union model is recognized within the suggested reforms coming before Parliament. Some of the issues at play in this legislative term include:

• the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which looks to impose new operational resilience and reporting requirements;
• the Consumer Credit Directive, looking to overhaul lending disclosures;
• Sustainable Finance to support the transition to a sustainable economy; and
• the EU Banking Package, which is looking to strengthen oversight of EU banks.

“While many of these changes are well-received, such as the Consumer Credit Directive, which will bring disclosures in line with modern digitalization developments, and the European Commission’s consideration of expanding the taxonomy on Sustainable Finance to include social factors, we need to make sure the not-for-profit credit union cooperative model is contemplated in these reforms so we can continue to provide inclusive economic growth for EU citizens,” said Andrew Price, World Council/ENCU Senior Vice President of Advocacy and General Counsel.

Participating members in this outreach effort included representatives from the:

• Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU);
• National Association of Co-operative Savings and Credit Unions (NACSCU) of Poland;
• Estonian Union of Credit Cooperatives (EUCC);
• Croatian Association of Credit Unions;
• North Macedonian Credit Union Movement (FULM);
• Federation of Romanian Credit Unions (FEDCAR); 
• Dutch Association of Cooperating Credit Unions (VSK).

WOCCU International Advocacy representatives joined the effort to share their views on how European Union policies can be proportionately tailored to allow credit unions to thrive in Europe.