Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-23-Speech-1-237"
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"en.20070423.23.1-237"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, you have a difficult task ahead of you because I can see that opinions will differ greatly on both sides. On the one side, you will have the support of a number of consumer associations, which will welcome your proposal. On the other side, you will have many interest groups, which will denounce the risks of such an approach in the field of competition law.
Nevertheless, since you are proposing an initiative in an area of yours relating to anti-trust, you are operating at a level at which the Commission’s inaction will no doubt be challenged less than it would elsewhere. I am thinking in particular of the way in which the Commission assesses a given merger proposal.
In the area of anti-trust, there is, in a way, more scope for a broader agreement between the Member States and the public players. The basic idea, then, is to supplement public action with private action. We are still only at the preliminary stage, and we can clearly see that the path will be full of pitfalls. There are those, like Mr Doorn, who imagine that the Commission does not have to give its opinion on initiatives in this area, because all of that is meant to come under the civil law of the Member States. Then, there are those – I believe that all of this evening’s speakers have voiced opinions along these lines – who are worried about the potential for such an initiative to be abused and, when we think about abuses in this area, everyone has in mind the abuse of the US system, where the victims whom the defence claims to help are in reality – if I dare say so – the cash cow of the legal professions. Clearly, no one in this Chamber wants to see European competition law engage in such a scheme.
You have announced to us a White Paper, and you have announced to us an impact study: once again, we shall examine your proposals with the aim of helping you, with the desire to make competition law better able, by way of these proposals, to address Europeans’ concerns and to fulfil what they might normally expect from a just application of competition law.
Once again, however – and I am not the first person this evening to have said this – anything that is liable to involve us in an abuse of procedures that helps put money into professions which, incidentally, find many other ways of guaranteeing turnover, would not have our support. It is in this spirit of openness and with the concern, often demonstrated in this Chamber, to protect consumers’ rights, that we shall support and examine your proposals."@en1
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