Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-25-Speech-3-462"
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"en.20090325.34.3-462"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first may I thank the shadow rapporteurs, especially Mr Sánchez Presedo on behalf of the socialists and Mrs Bowles on behalf of the liberals, who worked very successfully with me on the compromise text being tabled today as a report on the Commission’s White Paper. We have managed this time to achieve a very large, cross-group majority and a really viable compromise, which can also be used as a guideline for future work by the European Commission and later, during the law-making process, by Parliament and the Council.
We have made clear in this report – and rightly so – that, where competition rules are infringed, Parliament stands by the view that, according to the European tradition, it is primarily the task of the authorities – both the national competition authorities and the European competition authority – to take action and that this is not creating a second arm, as it were, on an equal footing with official action in the fight against cartels. We have deliberately chosen a different path in Europe from the US, with which the situation is often compared.
There is political consensus in the House that we need a solution for so-called mass claims. If the illegal conduct of individuals damages a very large number of persons who suffer comparatively minor losses, then a separate solution is needed for such proceedings, for which normal procedural law is simply not effective enough. The creation of such an instrument is also part of providing access to law and further developing the internal market. On this we are agreed.
There was also consensus that we do not want a litigation industry to develop in Europe as it has in America, with turnover of USD 240 billion, which is ultimately of no advantage to consumers and, as we all know from simply reading the relevant books, mainly profits American law firms. None of this has much to do with the rule of law, nor do we want it to. We agreed that the procedural torture instruments of the American system should not be adopted in Europe. This applies in particular to the taking of evidence and costs. That is a very important point.
We also agreed that we were basically of the opinion that, from a point of view of principle, legislation at European level can only be an opt-in solution and that an opt-out solution would only be permissible here where the Member States already have a similar solution and national constitutional law so allows. An opt in is not allowed under every country’s national constitutional law and it also contradicts the principle of the adult consumer.
As we insistently complain, the European Commission has completely forgotten to deal with the question of out-of-court settlements in its White Paper. The Directorate-General on Competition and the Commission have gone straight for litigation. However, as we have known for years from the debate in this House on legal policy, that is not always the ideal way forward and, as a rule, out-of-court settlement mechanisms are often much more suitable for resolving problems. Moreover, parallel work by the Directorate-General on Consumer Protection on the same issue has progressed much further. This Directorate-General used a broad margin for these alternative settlement instruments in its Green Paper, which is one consultation stage before this. We are convinced that the European Commission urgently needs to rework this question.
One last point, which is also crucial: we do not want fragmentation of the law. Now competition law is going off and creating such an instrument. Consumer protection is coming along on the same issue. We know that at some point something similar will be considered in relation to capital market law, environmental law and social law. We consider it absolutely necessary for a horizontal approach to be considered as well and for us at least to support the procedural instruments which are more or less the same in all areas with a horizontal instrument. That is also of decisive importance."@en1
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