Podgorica, (MINA-BUSINESS) – The Parliament has concluded a debate on the proposed amendments to the law on the level of default interest, which would increase this interest rate by one percentage point to eight percent.
Director General of the Directorate for Financial System and Improvement of Business Environment at the Ministry of Finance, Bojana Boskovic, reminded that the Law, which had been adopted in late 2009, envisaged that the default interest rate was set once every six months, and calculated on annual basis.
She said that the legal provisions on the default interest rate level were aligned with the European Directive 2000/35 on combating late payment in commercial transactions, which had been in effect in 2009, at the time of the adoption of this piece of legislation.
Boskovic added that this directive had been superseded by a new one, which required another harmonization of the national legislation, including an increase in default interest rate from seven to eight percent,” said.
Petar Ivanovic, MP of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) asked if the new directive had achieved its goal in the European Union, and if it was more important than business ethics and culture.
“According to surveys, 78 percent of the companies in the EU have encountered the collection problems in the last three years. Late payments often result in insolvency and loss of jobs,” said Ivanovic.
He argued that several studies suggested that this directive had not produced the intended effects and that it had failed to achieve the expected goals.
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