Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-03-Speech-2-307"
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"en.20010403.13.2-307"2
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"Mr President, in 1997, the Commission approved an interpretative communication – and I stress interpretative – on intra-Community investments, which was not submitted to the European Parliament or to the Council. And under the auspices of this Communication, the Commission has to date begun legal actions, if our calculations are correct, against nine of the fifteen Member States.
Nobody questions the Commission’s duty to pursue alleged infringements of Community Law. The Group of the European Peoples’ Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats’ criticism is that, by means of an interpretative communication, the Commission has unilaterally set the rules of the game in such an important area, and this is proved by the fact that the Stockholm European Council has dealt with it, thereby side-stepping, in our view, the legislative competences of this Parliament and of the Council.
I assume that Commissioner Bolkestein will be aware that the Court of Justice has already set the precedent of annulling an interpretative communication similar to this one, on pension funds, precisely because the Commission exceeded its authority. But it is also the case, Commissioner, that this Communication of 1997 has become obsolete because of recent economic developments. For all these reasons, it is very important to this House that the Commissioner replies clearly whether he intends, in accordance with his competences, to present a legislative proposal on intra-Community investments to Parliament and the Council. My Group, of course, believes this to be essential, given the current circumstances, and I am certain that, at the end of this debate, the Commissioner will be convinced that this presumption is agreed on by the enormous majority of this House.
Of these new circumstances which I have just referred to, I am going to expand on the opening up of national markets in key economic sectors, in which there still exist within the European Union monopoly systems which create asymmetry. In fact, in accordance with Community guidelines, certain Member States have made great efforts to open up their telecommunications and other sectors to competition. However, other States have not taken equivalent measures and their markets therefore remain closed to external competition.
This is why the PPE-DE Group believes that we should permit prevention mechanisms such as the "golden share", because otherwise objective discrimination may arise. I would therefore ask the Commissioner what measures the Commission intends to present in order to allow the Member States which are working to open up and privatise their economies to free competition to preserve the objective of that privatisation?
Commissioner, on Thursday, this Parliament will vote on a resolution which will establish its position at the end of the debate. I am convinced that the Commission will at all times apply the interinstitutional agreement which binds us and that you, Commissioner, will therefore act in accordance with your powers of legislative initiative and consequently present this House with a specific proposal immediately."@en1
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