On 02 March 2023, the European Council agreed on a general approach for the directive regarding financial services concluded at a distance. The Council's general approach supports the European Commission's proposal on 11 May 2022 that introduced the modernization rules concerning the financial contracts complying with the consumer rights directive (CRD).

The Council's introduced the following topics to the proposal:
? minimum harmonisation as regards pre-contractual obligations, which allows member states to have stricter national rules;
? clarification of the scope of the application and the safety net-feature of the directive;
? extension of the provisions of the right of withdraw feature;
? improvement of the rules of information disclosure and aims to modernise pre-contractual information obligations; and
? extension of the transposition period, so the industry will benefit from an additional six months to make all the required changes to their IT systems.

The general approach formalised the Council's negotiating position with a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament.