Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-06-Speech-3-195"
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"Mr Harbour, you identified one crucial point, namely preventing market trends from disrupting innovation. This is indeed one of our key concerns. You referred to the outcome of the Commission's peer group preview. I am delighted that the peer group has understood the needs of competition policy so clearly. We are beginning to form ideas about how to deploy additional resources within the competition DG but we must first secure the support of the budgetary authority.
Mrs Read, among others, supported the decision we took in late June about MCI WorldCom-Sprint. That decision was based on a great many considerations, including some input from the trade unions, although this in no way led us to depart from regulations.
Mrs Read and other Members of Parliament mentioned some sectors in which Europe has a lead, for instance third-generation mobile telephony and digital TV. One particularly effective way to maintain a lead is to make the market run efficiently. That is why we insist so much on rigorous enforcement of competition policy in the light of the market situation in Europe, irrespective of the nationality of companies. When companies establish or consolidate a dominant position without proposing the necessary remedies, we have no option but to block a merger and recently did so in a case involving two European companies, Volvo and Scania, which, indeed, are based in the same Member State. We would have done the same in another case in which one company was European (Pechiney) and the other North American-Canadian (Alcan), but the merger was withdrawn. In addition, we took similar action in the recent MCI WorldCom-Sprint case, where both companies were American. We have established excellent cooperation with our American counterparts at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
Talking of the US, several Members have drawn attention to the risks of the Hollings Bill. This is simply a proposal, and I hope that it will not become law, although this depends on your American opposite numbers. However, if it were to be adopted I would consider it a disturbing sign of protectionism It would be unfortunate if liberalisation, which has taken such giant leaps forward in the US, Europe and elsewhere over the past few years, were to start going backwards in the US. Moreover, the bill is, in our view, clearly incompatible with the USA's WTO obligations and other basic telecommunications agreements and the Commission through my colleague Pascal Lamy has certainly made this very clear to our American counterparts. The Commission also resolutely opposes any such legislation in our Member States. To dispel Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's anxieties, the Commission alone has the power to consider Community-scale mergers. When a Member State wrongfully intervenes, the Commission is ready to challenge such an intervention, as it proved in one case last year in a decision addressed to the Portuguese Government.
Mr Ortuondo Larrea, Mr Markov and Mr Rapkay referred to the very important AOL-Time Warner case. You will appreciate that I cannot say very much now. The deadline for the Commission's decision is 24 October. The hearing on this merger is taking place today and tomorrow in Brussels. We expressed our concerns on 22 August when we issued our statement of objections to the parties. There is nothing else I can add at this stage.
Mr Gallagher and another honourable Member referred to the allocation system for third-generation mobile telephone licences. The auctions will increase the number of mobile telephone operators in the Union. More players mean more competition, so we can only welcome the outcome of the auctions from a competitive standpoint.
We will obviously make sure that the consortia put in place will not lead to concerted practices because membership will vary from country to country. It has been pointed out that the sums paid to EU governments to obtain licences are too high and that making it necessary for the operators to recoup their initial investment would lead to higher prices for consumers and perhaps limit the development of new advanced mobile telephone services. But this is not a competition law issue as such, whereas trying to introduce restrictions on competition in order to make it easier to recoup the cost would be sanctioned by competition law.
However, irrespective of the system used – auctions, beauty contests or whatever – the precise rules of a beauty contest or an auction can require scrutiny to ensure, for example, that incumbents are not favoured and that non-discrimination, transparency and proportionality are guaranteed. So even though Member States are free to choose either a beauty contest, an auction system or a mixture of both, they must still comply with competition law and the sector-specific telecommunications legislation on licensing and with the state aid rules.
In this context I could mention that the competition DG is currently looking into a complaint against the Netherlands, jointly with the information society DG. They are also looking into a complaint against France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and finally, we are also investigating a UMTS auction under the state aid rules. So we are trying to be vigilant as all of you urge us to be."@en1
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