Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-237"
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"en.20050525.23.3-237"2
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".
Madam President, the Commission thanks the honourable Member for her question. I am really pleased, even if it is late, that we can talk about this very important item.
That would, of course, cover post
trading activities, as explicitly mentioned in the FTA’s decision in the cases referred to the Competition Commission.
I have just one more point to make. You mentioned the Dutch situation concerning blue
chip equities, which is something of which we are both aware. In my opinion it did not work; it was not successful. However, it was possible that it could have worked; there was potential. There is competition. It depends on what the market is doing. We always keep an eye on situations like that. Such things can sometimes be successful or sometimes fail.
I should have started with the apologies of my colleague, Commissioner McCreevy. He was very sorry that he was unable to here, but you can be assured that his thoughts are with us in this debate.
The Commission is aware of the ongoing projects and discussions in this area and is monitoring all the developments. National and also, as Mrs van den Burg has already mentioned, pan
European consolidation and restructuring in this sector is market led.
A merger of two or three EU stock exchanges would necessarily have an important impact on the structure of the market for EU equities trading and post
trading. The Commission intends to maintain its leadership role in driving towards an integrated EU financial services market. The Commission also favours the combined intervention of market forces and public authorities to ensure fair competition between all forms of securities trading venue, including exchanges in regulated markets, as well as newer trading devices, such as multilateral trading facilities and the internationalisation of orders in investment firms.
Mergers in this sector are subject to normal regulatory and competition authority oversight. Concerning the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004, the merger regulation, as well as the competition rules more generally, the Commission would like to recall that these rules apply to all industry sectors equally.
The Commission believes that the current provisions of the merger regulation allow for efficient and appropriate assessment procedures. We are confident in the capacity of the national competition authorities to carry out the assessments. Commission services are in contact with the competition authorities concerned and have met with a number of interested parties, including the potential bidders. Usually, the more you can decentralise, the better it is, because those national competition authorities are very able to do their jobs. Therefore, I am usually in favour of the national competition authorities doing their jobs. There is a lot of contact and discussion within the network, so it is not a matter of them being on their own, but of doing it together.
The honourable Member was concerned that a merger could lead to upwards pressure on trading prices. This is certainly being examined. One of the central issues in the investigations being conducted by the competition authorities is to ensure that a merged entity includes mechanisms to ensure that competition rules are respected, also for the medium and long term.
Also noteworthy is the increased competition that is likely to come from the MiFID, from internationalisation and multilateral trading facilities in particular and the fact that capital markets are increasingly global. We should not forget the potential of mergers to lead to increased innovation in terms of the products and services that are offered to investors. The Commission cannot take a position on an individual corporate decision made by the New York Stock Exchange and its future strategies. Mrs van den Burg touched upon that issue. In case of any prospective future merger, normal provisions would apply and, to the extent that there may be any regulatory concerns, this should be for the SEC to deal with. In this respect, the Commission notes that
of the important exchanges in Europe, including all the parties involved in the LSE merger discussions, are already listed as regulated markets in the EU. In Europe we have found ways of ensuring that regulatory functions are kept at a sufficient remove from the commercial interests of exchange, and there is no reason to suspect that this will not be the case in other developed markets.
I would like to thank Mrs van den Burg for mentioning this issue. As the honourable Member is aware, the Office of Fair Trading has referred the cases to the Competition Commission, and this is the equivalent of what we would call a phase 2 investigation at European level. The national competition authorities are clearly taking this issue most seriously and the Commission is confident that they are examining all aspects which could potentially impact on competition. This is illustrated – to answer the point Mrs van den Burg has touched upon – by the questions raised in their issues paper."@en1
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