Thesis defence Non-performing loans at the intersection of EU Regulation and Consumer Protection Unpacking the tension Add to calendar 2025-04-28 15:00 2025-04-28 17:00 Europe/Rome Non-performing loans at the intersection of EU Regulation and Consumer Protection Sala degli Stemmi (Villa Salviati) and Zoom YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Apr 28 2025 15:00 - 17:00 CEST Sala degli Stemmi (Villa Salviati) and Zoom, Outside EUI premises Organised by Department of Law PhD thesis defence by Vasiliki Yiatrou Non-performing loans (NPLs) are private loans not being serviced according to the contractual agreement between borrowers and financial institutions. Following the 2008 financial crisis, NPLs became a significant concern for EU prudential regulation. Conversely, consumer protection law is primarily invoked to the extent that it is instrumental in achieving the objectives of prudential regulation. This EU approach fails to address the tension between prudential policy and consumer protection. Against this background, this thesis unpacks the tension, exploring how prudential policy interacts with consumer protection laws and how the tension between these two EU policies affects consumer protection in five European jurisdictions, characterised by high levels of household indebtedness: Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. It does so with a multi-method approach to capture the interdisciplinary nature of NPLs, which significantly overlaps legal, economic and political research. Notably, it utilises process tracing tools, qualitative content analysis, descriptive statistics, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.