Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-28-Speech-3-047"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resolution presented today is based on the debate of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs held during the annual report on competition policy for 2002. I want to give my sincere thanks to Mr Della Vedova for the important work he has done. Also, Mr President, I want to say how much I appreciate and how vital for me was the excellent cooperation with the parliamentary committees, primarily the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. The proposed resolution does, in my opinion, accurately reflect that committee’s support for the Commission’s competition policy.
I should like to take this opportunity to briefly explain the stage that competition policy is now at and give you an idea of the direction we want to take in the immediate future. As you know, during the current Commission’s term of office the reform of all competition rules has been started and, to a large extent, completed. The common aim underlying the various aspects of that reform has been to make our control procedures more effective and eliminate superfluous red tape, without undermining the substance of the competition rules. I believe that this can help to increase competitiveness, growth and employment in Europe.
I should like to say a few words on each of the three main areas with which competition policy is concerned: antitrust, concentrations, State aids. In the antitrust sector, at the end of 2002, the Council adopted Regulation 1/2003 establishing a new framework for the application of Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty. This regulation opens up a new chapter in the application of Community competition rules; in fact it is the biggest antitrust reform since 1962 and will enter into force on 1 May 2004. The following are the two main aspects of the new system: abolishing the notification system in respect of agreements between undertakings and establishing uniform conditions under which undertakings are to operate in the context of the common market. The application of Community competition rules shall become the norm enabling undertakings to carry out projects in a much simpler manner than happens under the present system where agreements between undertakings are governed not just by Community provisions, but also by 25 national legal systems. Simultaneously, under the new system undertakings are freed from the onerous burdens of notification and the Commission can concentrate all its resources on pursuing the most serious infringements of the competition rules. The reform mobilises the full potential of national competition authorities and national courts to contribute to the application of European antitrust regulations. A network of the 25 national authorities is currently being set up for the purpose of ensuring that tasks are more effectively and more efficiently allocated between the Commission and the national authorities; the Commission shall have the task – which is certainly demanding – of guaranteeing that the regulations are applied in a coherent manner.
I could give much more detail, but I do not intend to do so now. I should, however, like to stress an aspect of this competition policy which will be proactive, based less on waiting for notifications and more on initiatives taken by the Commission and the national competition authorities; we wanted to give a special role to consumers, who are the ultimate beneficiaries towards whom our competition policy is actually directed, by means of, for example, a number of provisions designed to make consumer associations more involved in investigations into matters concerning competition, whilst also encouraging them to register complaints.
I now come to the second part of our reform, which concerns the control of concentrations. I should like to point out at the outset that this control is not so interventionist as it might appear to be at first sight. The Commission certainly has no intention of hindering the restructuring of markets; concentrations are necessary to respond to the challenges of a developing economy. In fact, if we look at the statistics, we see that since 1990, of more than 2200 concentrations that have been notified, the Commission has blocked only 18: it is therefore an extremely small proportion, but blocking a concentration is of course more newsworthy than authorising it. The recently adopted reform of the regulation governing concentrations introduces a certain degree of flexibility into the time-limits for examining the operation, strengthens the one-stop-shop principle which is extremely beneficial for undertakings and stipulates that the essential criterion on which operations are to be assessed is that concerned with all types of harmful situations, whether involving the dominant position of a single undertaking or the effects of a situation where there is an oligopoly that could damage consumer interests.
As regards the internal organisation of the Commission, in the area concerned with competition we have introduced a number of fairly radical innovations – which various Members have followed extremely closely and encouraged – including giving greater weight to economic analysis in the assessment of competition cases. As from September 2003, there has been a new figure, the Chief Competition Economist, operating within the Directorate General for Competition, who is providing a new input into our decision-making procedure in terms of economic analysis.
I now come briefly, Mr President, to the third area on which competition policy is based, that is to say the control of State aids. Parliament and the Council have repeatedly and rightly insisted that the overall amount of State aids must be reduced and that, at the same time, State aids must be geared more to supporting horizontal objectives than to supporting, often artificially, specific sectors or single undertakings. As you know, Parliament has supported this move: in July 2001 we established an assessment framework – a score board for State aids – and the latest figures, from last spring, confirmed that there was a trend towards a reduction in the level of aids; when the new figures are issued this April we shall see whether this trend has continued.
As regards State aids, just as I said a few moments ago in relation to antitrust and concentrations, we have attempted to redirect the Commission’s work towards those activities which are capable of causing most damage to competition in Europe. We still have an intensive work programme, from now until the end of the present Commission’s term of office, in relation to the State aids sector, a programme which is focussed on three main aspects: more effective amendments to working methods and procedures; developing simpler methods for dealing with less important cases of aid; reviewing the current substantive regulations governing State aids. Work on procedural reform is already quite advanced: we are in the process of preparing a regulation which lays down the implementing provisions of the Council’s procedural rules and we want to develop new instruments for simplifying the treatment of those aids which do not raise any significant competition problems. As a follow-up to the Commission’s Green Paper on services of general economic interest, in which this Parliament has shown such great interest, major priority will be given to clarifying the control mechanism governing the payment of compensation for costs associated with the supply of services of general economic interest.
I shall stop now in order not to overrun the time allocated to me, but not before saying a few very brief words, Mr President, on what we have done during this time, once again with Parliament’s support, as regards the international dimension of competition policy, both by further developing certain bilateral cooperation relations between antitrust authorities – primarily with those in the US – and by setting up with other partners the first multilateral body on competition, the International Competition Network. We are hopeful that in this sector the governance of globalisation is flourishing, and not withering away, as is unfortunately happening in other sectors. I am, of course, available to listen to and, where necessary, comment on the speeches that follow."@en1
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