Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-292"
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"en.20020903.10.2-292"2
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"Mr President, I should like to endorse what my honourable friend Mr Harbour has just said. I feel that the legislative work of this House is not properly reflected in the order of business and that we are still prone to the resolutionitis which we suffered from in 1979. The PPE group had a really hard time with this Commission proposal, in part due to the fact that the Member States have very different approaches to competition law. We took great pains to broker a compromise, including with the rapporteur in committee, and I should like to report to plenary today that the PPE group firmly backs this compromise, which is identical to the report by the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. I think this is a remarkable announcement to plenary by so big a group. There was not one dissenting voice within the group.
This compromise includes a statement to the effect that we agree with the compromise and that we agree with the Commission's idea of using a regulation. We believe that, in principle, a regulation is the right way to tackle the problems addressed here. However, the Member States will need time to adapt, so we have suggested a later starting date, namely 1 January 2005.
Mr Folias has addressed the problem of small and medium-sized businesses. They were in fact a crucial factor in our debate. To give just two examples: numerous Member States have banned below cost selling in their fair trading legislation, partly in order to protect their small and medium-sized enterprises. We have amended the Commission proposal by expressly allowing for such an eventuality. We have also ensured that tariffs for fees for the liberal professions can be maintained without restriction. On the other hand, we have achieved the required degree of harmonisation. I think that excesses in competition law such as we saw at the start of the year in Germany, when a firm wanting to offer a 20% discount was prohibited from doing so by a court order, will be a thing of the past. Thank you for listening. I am afraid I must leave now. I have another meeting at 9 p.m. and trust that the honourable Members and the Commission will excuse me."@en1
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