Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-08-Speech-3-118"
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"en.20031008.11.3-118"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, over the past three years, the Commission has been involved in a thorough review of the Community antitrust system. As you mentioned, Commissioner, the proposal for a new regulation on concentrations between undertakings before us today represents one of the key phases of that review process.
The previous regulation had become increasingly central to the EU’s competition policy. It had considerable merits, offering the undertakings involved in mergers a ‘one-stop shop’ and preset deadlines. However, the growing integration of markets and the consequent increase in the number and relevance of merger cases examined by the Commission has brought the existing rules to a critical point, as demonstrated by the recent Court of Justice judgments rejecting certain decisions by the Commission, something you, yourself, also referred to, Commissioner. Hence the need to reform the existing rules, and the Commission is to be congratulated for having reacted swiftly to this need.
The three vital points both in the Commission proposal and also in Parliament's report, points that you drew attention to yourself, Commissioner, are the substantive test, jurisdiction and procedural issues. As regards jurisdiction, that is to say the field of application of the regulation and thus the allocation of cases between the different national authorities, there is a need to solve the problem of multiple notifications, which will become even more serious for the businesses affected following enlargement. These multiple applications are totally at odds with the principle of the one-stop shop to which we have all referred.
In its proposal, the Commission has abandoned both the possibility of changing thresholds, presumably because of the complications involved, and the ‘3+’ principle, although contained in the Green Paper, which was advocated by Parliament in the Berenguer Fuster report. This positive view was confirmed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which defined an automatic test also allowing for referral to the Commission during the pre-notification stage, when a case has to be notified to several national authorities. Parliament accordingly wishes to reiterate the line already taken in the debate on the Green Paper.
With regard to principle, the substantive test has nevertheless proved effective up to now, although this has been keenly debated. Some people have proposed switching to a substantial lessening of competition test, a principle used in the United States and in some Member States. In this respect, your rapporteur acted on the Commission's proposal to add a paragraph to Article 2, which would have defined the concept of dominant position more clearly. I, personally, suggested a rewording, but the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs decided at this stage to call on the Commission to leave things as they are, thus backing the value of the test and of its effectiveness, as demonstrated up to now.
As regards procedural issues, I would like to say a few words about powers of investigation. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has proposed toning down some of the provisions in the proposal for a regulation, given that we believe that, on grounds of proportionality, it is absolutely unnecessary to bring the Commission’s powers of investigation for mergers into line with the powers envisaged for cartels, since the areas concerned are completely different. A merger essentially represents ‘business as usual’ and we do not, therefore, believe there should be any presumption that the rules have been breached. This gives this House all the more reason to believe that we should stand firm on this issue, given the powers that the Commission is proposing to grant itself, albeit quite legitimately. We believe that Parliament should adopt a position offering a better guarantee here.
I would like to make two points by way of conclusion. Firstly, there is the position of the workforce. During the debate, some Members, in particular the Socialists, expressed their concern and a proposal to take into account the possible employment impact of merger operations, and even proposed that the acceptability of a merger should be dependent on preserving jobs. We believe that this is not the right place to insert a clause of this kind, because there is a danger that it would conflict with the overall logic of the regulation, which is to guarantee a competitive single market precisely in order to increase employment.
As regards worker participation and information, the regulation already contains some provisions in this respect; further provisions in precisely this area are envisaged in other European legislation. I do not believe that there is any need to include these provisions here and, in view of this, I would ask the House and, in particular, Mr Berenguer Fuster and Mrs van den Burg, to reconsider. The fact that these amendments will be rejected should not be allowed to prejudice the vote on the entire legislative proposal. I am, however, happy to support Mr Schmidt's amendment."@en1
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