Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-261"
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"en.20010404.9.3-261"2
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"Mr President, first of all I want to express my gratitude to the rapporteur, Mr Camisón, for his magnificent work and to Parliament for the effort it has made to improve this proposal, as shown by the various amendments presented by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and also those tabled and argued today during this sitting.
The Commission is by no means giving up the idea of submitting a proposal of this kind in the future, and I should again like to thank Mr Costa for the work he put into his own report on this. But what we can never do is subordinate the need to assess concrete plans for public aid to an agreement by the European institutions on common standards. On the basis of a pragmatic approach and in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, and until we have these standards accepted jointly by everyone, the Commission leaves the choice of the method for assessing these costs in each specific case to the Member States.
In view of all these arguments, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 16, 18 (second part), 19, 20, 24, 27, 33, 36, 40, 44, 45 and 51. We cannot accept Amendments Nos 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18 (first part), 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49 and 52.
This proposal for a Regulation concerning state aid for the inland transport sector implements Article 73 of the Treaty, according to which aids for the coordination of transport are compatible with Community law. Our intention, therefore, is to create a transparent, coherent and clear framework so that there will not be distortions in the market. It is also important that the same standards should be applied to different inland transport modes that compete with one another. The Commission proposal, therefore, establishes common criteria for the granting of exemptions which apply equally to all types of inland transport.
Roughly half of the amendments agree with the Commission’s position and can therefore be accepted. Some of them, however, run in a very different direction and hence we cannot accept them. I shall refer to some of them.
First, the concept of state aid is the cornerstone of the Union’s competition policy. According to this concept, any public aid to a company performing an economic activity, whatever its legal status, is an example of state aid to which the rules of the Treaty apply. Neither Amendment Nos 21 or 37 can change this fundamental principle of Community law.
The aim of several amendments is to encourage rail and combined transport through the granting of public subsidies in detriment to other transport modes. We cannot share the approaches proposed, although we agree with the concern and need to boost the railways. But, ladies and gentlemen, we shall achieve this if the railways are able to give good quality service and are thus competitive, and to this end I believe the measures we are setting in motion are the best.
A key element of the proposal is to create conditions of equality, so that there can be fair competition between companies based on the user-pays principal, which takes into account external and infrastructure costs. As a consequence, state aid should confine itself to compensating for certain external costs, all within a framework of fair competition. Uncontrolled aid in excess of these costs does not give these companies adequate incentive to improve efficiency and competitiveness.
Other amendments propose that aid to transhipment installations, with combined transport terminals, should be exempt from any notification procedure, but since the terminals are often operated by private companies and compete with other terminals to attract traffic flows, there is an obvious risk that there may be a distortion of competition. We therefore cannot accept that they should not be communicated.
It has also been proposed that companies that provide passenger transport services may opt for aid to compensate for external and infrastructure costs. Aid for passenger services, however, under Article 73, is regulated in the Commission regulation on public services, which proposes a complete and appropriate framework on the manner in which the public authorities can support the provision of internal passenger transport services. Therefore the aim of these amendments is ultimately to change this regulation, and the Commission cannot therefore accept them.
One amendment also asks for criteria to be established regarding systems for compensating for external effects and infrastructure costs. The assessment of external effects is a subject under constant debate, as Mr Jarzembowski has indicated. Today there are methods applicable to that kind of assessment, but despite the Commission’s efforts the Member States have proved very resistant to agreeing on common formulae."@en1
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