Revised EU rules on short-term credit insurance for industrialised countries
Finnvera’s temporary permission to insure short-term exports to Western industrialised countries expired at the end of 2012. The EU has published a Communication, updated on 19 December 2012, which restricts short-term export credit insurance by public export-credit insurers in areas where private credit insurance companies provide insurance cover. On the basis of this Communication, Finnvera has applied for new temporary permission to insure transactions in limited cases.
The new legislation on short-term credit insurance will be in force from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2018. The basic legal principle remains the same. Public export-credit insurers are not allowed to provide insurance for risks of under two years in the following countries: the EU Member States, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United States of America. Exemptions from this principle may be granted in certain exceptional cases.
Finland has applied for a new exemption concerning the following cases identified by the Commission as areas of market failure:
- when the applicant is a Finnish SME with a total annual export turnover of at most two million euros;
- when the insurance applies to a single risk/transaction of over 180 days.
The Commission has decided to remove Greece from the list of marketable risk countries, published in the new Communication, temporarily until the end of 2013.
