Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-03-Speech-3-338"
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"en.20011003.10.3-338"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Agag Longo, and to Mr Evans for his speech. I admire the quality of Mr Agag Longo’s report and appreciate the many constructive observations that have been made. It does not escape me that the report also contains critical notes, and I assure you that, although it is impossible in this House to take a definite stand on all the observations made in the report, I can guarantee that all of them will be very carefully examined. I am also grateful to the other speakers in this sitting – Messrs Konrad and Berenguer Fuster and Ms Riis-Jørgensen – for their political and, I must add, their cultural support for the European Union’s competition policy.
The third priority area of work concerns globalisation: how competition policy, by seeking greater coordination among the various parts of the world, can make its contribution to the governance of globalisation. In this respect – apart, of course, from the highly intense relationships within the European Union with the national competition authorities – outside the European Union we have set up close bilateral working relationships and begun most welcome and far-reaching cooperation in particular with the competition authorities of the United States, and last week we held an intense session of work in Washington, at which we planned further development of such bilateral cooperation.
I think, however, that the bilateral dimension is not enough, and we are proceeding, with all the weight of conviction that the European Union has in this area, to develop two forms of multilateral cooperation. One is the proposal to introduce some basic, binding competition standards within the World Trade Organisation. The other is the recent initiative to launch a global competition forum to provide a venue for world-level discussions among competition authorities.
Among our short-term priorities is the work now under way of modernising the competition rules, which we have been carrying out with even greater conviction – if that is possible – ever since Parliament gave us that vote by such a decisive majority. Within the year we intend to conclude the revision of the
communication, which, by specifying which agreements between companies are not forbidden under Article 81, Paragraph 1, will reduce the burden on companies, especially smaller ones, of conforming to the rules.
Having already mentioned the exemption regulation on cars, I should also like to refer to the policy against cartels, which is a basic pillar of any competition authority. By the end of this year we shall have further developed and updated the policy of indulgence, based on non-prosecution or reduced fines for those who collaborate in disclosing cartels. This is yet another area of convergence between the American and European approaches. In the matter of controlling mergers, the Commission’s priority for 2001 will be to continue to re-examine the mergers regulation. In this respect, during the year I intend to draw up a formal consultation document on this subject.
As for the way new cases are dealt with, our work is focusing particularly on the recently liberalised markets, which were mentioned particularly by Messrs Konrad, Evans and others, such as energy, air transport, telecommunications and postal services, in an attempt to prevent the former monopoly holders from abusing the positions of strength that they traditionally enjoyed.
I thank you all once again for the expressions of support and encouragement you have given to the Commission in matters of competition: you know how important it is for the Commission and for me personally to have the support of Parliament in our everyday work, and how seriously we take your critical comments, which we value highly.
The thirtieth annual report summarises the developments that have occurred during 2000. A quick glance is enough to realise that the competition sector has continued to show intense activity, with a total of 1206 new files, 564 cases of State aid, 345 mergers and acquisitions and 297 cases of monopolies. Work in the legislative field has focused on reform of our basic rules and regulations. This activity has led to approval of new regulations on block exemptions in horizontal agreement issues. New guidelines on vertical restraints have been adopted, in addition to the new 1999 block exemption regulation. You will know that these new formulations give greater weight to economic guidance.
The fact that the number of cases of monopolies has fallen may be due to these new rules on vertical restraints, which have substantially reduced the obligation to notify this kind of agreement, and this gives the offices more room to concentrate on the more serious and difficult cases. Considerable progress has been made towards a reform of the competition rules, to which Parliament gave decisive support a month ago, adopting Mr Evans’s report by such a large majority.
On the issue of mergers, a communication on corrective provisions has been adopted, as has a simplified procedure for certain straightforward types of operation, so that now about 40 per cent of merger cases can be dealt with in this way. On the issue of controlling State aid, the Commission has introduced, for the first time, three groups of exemption regulations: on the application of the
rule, on aid to small and medium-sized enterprises, and on aid for training. I accept Ms Riis-Jørgensen’s point about recovering illegal State aid, because I too believe it to be very important for overall credibility.
As regards aid levels, the general trend that they are falling is confirmed, although this does not alter the fact that they remain very high. Allow me, Mr President, to highlight the fact that, in relation to State aid and contrary to what paragraph 2 of your motion for a resolution would suggest, the Commission has effectively already instigated proceedings against State aid in the form of tax facilities and, on 11 July, the number of them had risen to 15. We are also intensifying our efforts to recover the sums wrongly paid out in the form of State aid.
Let me now point out three aspects to which we are devoting special attention, not only in the last annual report but also in our everyday operations. The first and most important is the impact of competition policy on consumers. I know that Parliament shares our opinion that the consumer should be the final beneficiary of competition policy. It is certainly necessary to make consumers more aware of the benefits of competition policy and to inform citizens about our activity and the effects it has for them.
As you will have noticed, the report gives examples of certain decisions, showing the benefits resulting from them for consumers. A good example is the decision against OPEL Nederland to defend the right of consumers to buy a car without hindrance in a Member State in which prices are lower; other, more recent examples are an analogous decision against Volkswagen and the setting-up of an enquiry into mobile telecommunications prices charged by roaming operators. On the subject of cars, I accept what Mr Evans said: the Commission is working hard to draw up a proposal for the period subsequent to 30 September 2002, when the regulation for block exemption from the motor vehicle distribution agreement comes to an end. I intend to present a new draft regulation by the end of the year, and I am sure you will be glad to express your opinion on it, given the extreme interest Parliament has so far shown in this subject.
With regard to consumer information, may I remind you of the initiative of the European Competition Days, which grew out of discussions in this Parliament. After Lisbon, Paris and Stockholm, the next will be held under the Belgian Presidency in Antwerp on 11 October, and will focus on competition in the pharmaceutical sector.
A second priority we are working on – one which several people have mentioned this evening – concerns State aid, not only to make control stricter but also to make this subject more transparent through initiatives like the public register and the scoreboard, which is, in fact, readily available on the Internet."@en1
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