Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-15-Speech-4-110-000"
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"en.20111215.5.4-110-000"2
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"Madam President, many thanks to all the honourable Members for the contributions made to this debate on Mr Schwab’s Annual Report on EU Competition Policy and on competition policy in general.
I would like to repeat a point that I mentioned in my initial intervention: aid for banks, which is very important, is not something that is decided by the European Commission. The European Commission is responsible for controlling the conditions according to which such aid may be compatible and the consequences for the financial entities that receive such aid, in terms of restructuring. It is not possible for a financial entity to receive a single euro of public money unless it puts forward a restructuring plan. In the same way, the Commission controls the conditions on which efforts are shared: it is not only taxpayers who have to make efforts to restructure entities through their governments and their treasuries; the shareholders and all the parties involved in the financial entity also have to contribute, and the Commission sees to this. All that public aid, all that enormous effort, must avoid creating distortions in competition.
It is true that not everything can be done by controlling state aid. In fact, through the control of state aid in the financial system, the Commission is compensating for the absence of a European authority for resolving crisis in financial entities and my colleague, Michel Barnier, is preparing proposals in this regard, which you will soon have the opportunity to discuss. It is imperative that that financial regulation should enable us to provide ourselves with tools that do not exist today on a European scale and that do not even exist in many European countries. It is only the existence of control over state aid that enables us to make up for that absence but it is not possible to carry on like this indefinitely. There are, of course, many other things to be done in order to prevent the financial crisis and its consequences on the banks and the real economy dragging on and that debate is very important but now is not the time.
I would make a final reference to other issues that you have raised in debate: the extraordinarily important issues relating to the private enforcement of competition policy. The Commission’s Work Programme for next year includes a proposed legislative initiative in this regard. The debate on collective actions in relation to such private enforcement of competition policy is very important. We await the conclusions of the debate in this House with interest before presenting our own ideas.
It is very important to improve the rights of the parties in any investigative process on competition matters and we have improved those rights recently. It is very important to have regard to competition problems in particular economic sectors and I agree fully with those who have mentioned energy, telecommunications, railways, air travel, the food sector, services and the financial markets. In all these areas we are working very hard, both from the point of view of the abuse of dominant positions – that is, to prevent abuses of dominant positions – and from the point of view of merger control and the fight against cartels. Of course, it is very important – and this is my final point, Madam President – that putting our principles and rules on free competition into practice in a rigorous fashion not only enables us to develop the internal market for the benefit of our citizens but also enables us to be competitive within and beyond our borders."@en1
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