The EU covered bond legislative package passed a technical hurdle in the European Parliament yesterday (Thursday), paving the way for it to come into force after publication in the EU Official Journal, with implementation anticipated by mid-2022.

Political approval of the package was finalised in a parliamentary plenary vote on 18 April ahead of European elections, but official translations into all EU languages had not been finalised, so final approval had to await a plenary of the new parliament. This had initially been hoped to be in July, but was pushed back until the latest plenary on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

As well as translations having been completed, the passage of the package included the approval of minor amendments to the text. These were prepared by the ECON committee and the corrigendum was deemed approved because there was no request to put this to the vote during the plenary.

Publication of the legislation in the Official Journal of the EU is expected next month or in December at the latest, and the Directive and Regulation will come into force 20 days thereafter. Member States will then have 18 months to implement the Directive and issuers will have a further 12 months to align their programmes with the new legislation.

Photo: European Parliament plenary yesterday; Copyright: EU