Late payments: 30 days to pay a bill

Smaller companies all too often endure severe financial problems due to the late payment of bills. For over a year the European Parliament has pushed to secure stricter and clear-cut rules on payment periods, including a general 30-day deadline. On Tuesday, the Internal Market Committee voted to endorse the deal struck with Council on 13 September.

The deal, presented to the committee as a "consolidated amendment" to the report by rapporteur Barbara Weiler (S&D, DE) received broad backing from all political groups and was unanimously endorsed with 30 votes in favour and no abstentions.

"This legislation will bring about a new ethics of payment in Europe. The new rules will provide better solvency and allow small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to promote more innovation and jobs", Mrs. Weiler said before the vote, adding that "this is a compromise. Without the Council there would have been no exemptions and the rules would have been much more stringent. But we were negotiating with 27 Member States and some of them thought we were going too far".

News link: European Parliament link: article