No L 322/30 Official jo‘umal of the European Communities 17.12. 77 FIRST COUNCIL DIRECTIVE of 12 December 1977 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions (77/780/EEC) THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 57 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, Having regard to the opinion of the European Parlia- ment (1), Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee (3), Whereas, pursuant to the Treaty, any discriminatory treatment with regard to establishment and to the provision of services, based either on nationality or on the fact that an undertaking is not established in the Member States where the services are provided, is prohibited from the end of the transitional period; Whereas, in order to make it easier to take up and pursue the business of credit institutions, it is neces- sary to eliminate the most obstructive differences between the laws of the Member States as regards the rules to which these institutions are subject ; Whereas, however, given the extent of these differ- ences, the conditions required for a common market for credit institutions cannot be created by means of a single Directive ; whereas it is therefore necessary to proceed by successive stages; whereas the result of this process should be to provide for overall supervi- sion of a credit insttution operating in several Member States by the competent authorities in the Member State where it has its head office, in consulta- tion, as appropriate, with the competent authorities of the other Member States concerned ; Whereas measures to coordinate credit institutions must, both in order to protect savings and to create equal conditions of competition between these institu- tions, apply to all of them ; whereas due regard must be had, where applicable, to the objective differences in their statutes and their proper aims as laid down by national laws ; (") OJ No C 128, 9. 6. 1975, p. 25. (3) O] No C 263, 17. 11. 1975, p. 25, Whereas the scope of those measures should therefore be as broad as possible, covering all institutions whose business is to receive repayable funds from the public whether in the form of deposits or in other forms such as the continuing issue of bonds and other comparable securities and to grant credits for their own account; whereas exceptions must be provided for in the case of certain credit institutions to which this Directive cannot apply ; Whereas the provisions of this Directive shall not prej- udice the application of national laws which provide for special supplementary authorizations permitting credit institutions to carry on specific activities or undertake specific kinds of operations ; Whereas the same system of supervision cannot always be applied to all types of credit institution ; whereas provision should therefore be made for appli- cation of this Directive to be deferred in the case of certain groups or types of credit institutions to which its immediate application might cause technical problems ; whereas more specific provisions for such institutions may prove necessary in the future; whereas these specific provisions should nonetheless be based on a number of common principles; Whereas the eventual aim is to introduce uniform authorization requirements throughout the Commu- nity for comparable types of credit institution; wherecas at the initial stage it is necessary, however, to specify only certain minimum requirements to be imposed by all Member States ; Whereas this aim can be achieved only if the particu- larly wide discretionary powers which certain supervi- sory authorities have for authorizing credit establish- ments are progressively reduced ; whereas the require- ment that a programme of operations must be produced should therefore be seen merely as a factor enabling the competent authorities to decide on the basis of more precise information using objective criteria ;