Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-297"

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"en.20020903.10.2-297"2
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"Mr President, we must welcome the courageous study that the Commission has undertaken on sales promotions in the internal market and the legislative approach it has chosen and most of the solutions found to the regulation we are now considering. However, no fine intention to improve the functioning of the internal market and to make best use of competition rules – as the Commission would like to see, and rightly so – can hide the irrationality of allowing sales below cost. As has already been said in this debate, no one gives anything away for nothing and there is no such thing as a free lunch. Nevertheless, selling below cost is a commercial stratagem which will, sooner or later, be tolerated by consumers. The fairness of commercial practices is an essential and absolute value for the construction and development of a healthier, fairer and more cohesive economy. The predatory practice of pricing below cost is incompatible with these values. Indeed, when this practice is widespread, it imposes unacceptable pressures on the production system in a field with a dominant position, destroying legitimate profit margins to an unimaginable level and, consequently, the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are thereby bound to make all types of concession and are subject to every type of moral pressure. This practice is also responsible for promoting impulse purchases, which obviously present no advantages for consumers, and instead threaten their interests and change their scale of priorities. The ban on irresponsible selling must, therefore, be maintained as a principle crucial to fair commercial practice. Furthermore, we have seen that the commercial strategy of predatory pricing is not controllable simply by applying the general rules on unfair competition. The European Parliament must, therefore, table amendments to the Commission regulation, respecting the principles that I have mentioned."@en1

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