Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-23-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20001023.9.1-102"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the lavish amount of speaking time we permit ourselves for debates of this kind, I want to dispense with the preliminaries and address Commissioner Monti directly.
Commissioner, you know that for some time now, there has been a substantial consensus in this House on competition issues. This means that the entire House supports the Commission in matters of competition policy. With the passage of time though, I have begun to wonder whether the Commission is not, in fact, gradually losing its sense of perspective where individual decisions are concerned, or whether it even wants to prejudge fundamental decisions in entirely different political fields under the mantle of competition. I will cite one of several examples, and it is one that is currently the subject of intense debate in other regions besides my own. It concerns the subsidisation decision or non-subsidisation decision in relation to the coal industry.
I will take the precaution, Commissioner – in case you should want to point out that this in fact falls within Commissioner Palacio’s remit – of saying that I am addressing the Commission as a whole. I would also draw your attention to the fact that the coal issue is raised both in the competition report and in the subsidy report that we are discussing today. I expect the Commission to uphold its agreements. I do not expect it to abuse judgements from the Court of Justice in order to withdraw from these agreements. I will reiterate what I have already said repeatedly in debates of this kind: competition is not an end in itself. When a decision is to be taken in matters of competition policy, account must be taken of the social, structural and industrial implications, and if this is not done then competition policy will degenerate to the level of pure ideology. If the aspects I mentioned are taken into consideration, and one considers the net product chain of the state-of-the-art technology, then the subsidy licences that have fallen due for coal mining must be granted without delay.
This does not just apply to the sphere of energy policy; it applies right across the board. Competition is important but it is not the be-all and end-all.
To sum up, what we need is to strike a balance between competition rules and acting for the public good. This must be the guiding principle in all areas. Commissioner, I want to take up what I said at the beginning. The support is still there. But if you carry on in this vein, you risk losing the support of not insignificant sections of the House. I dare say that is unlikely to help matters overall."@en1
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