Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see we have before us a whole host of topical matters and decisions related to competition policy. Given the short time available to me, I will have to confine myself to state aid policy and therefore to Mr Herzog's report, which we Social-Democrats fully support. Allow me first to make a comment, Commissioner: do not be too disconcerted by what the previous speaker has just said. This really is far removed from what the vast majority of Members of this Parliament thinks. I believe that the vote on the two reports later on will also show that we do not agree with what has just been said. As I have already mentioned, we endorse this report by Mr Herzog on state aid, which supports the strict policy of state aid control that is implemented by the Commission on the basis of the treaties. It is a balanced report, which points out that state aid policy also has to meet other EU objectives, in particular competitiveness, growth and employment, and this in accordance with the Lisbon strategy. That is why I am very pleased, Commissioner, that you also mentioned this principle explicitly in your introductory remarks and expressed your support for it. It is good that there has again been a decline in state aid. This is the result of the Commission's tough aid control policy. Because not only do these aids carry a risk of distorting the market, but also aid must of course, in each instance, first be obtained from elsewhere and may then be lacking in another area. Neither can they be rejected wholesale, however. Instead qualitative criteria must be used to assess each grant of aid to ascertain whether the objective sought might not justify distortions to the market, which may be limited in time, or whether these measures might even eliminate existing distortions to the market in the medium term. In this context, Commissioner, I should like to recall two points, in connection with which I asked questions and made requests during a debate on the same subject all of a year ago. It is true that the most competitive region, which is of course what we want to be, has to distinguish itself by having competitive companies. This means that the companies should manage as far as possible without aids and that any aids have to be directed at increasing the competitiveness of these companies. In the process, however, it is not only the individual company that needs to be assessed; the entire net product chain of which the company is part needs to be taken into account. If you wish to apply qualitative criteria it is not enough to focus solely on one single company. My second point concerns a request that I wish to make in the field of regional policy. Today we are already discussing how regional policy will actually work after 2006. Much will change for the present EU of 15, for the old Member States, and it is right that it should. But in this context we really do need to consider how we are going to rebalance regional aids across the Member States. We need to discuss this and we need to do it in good time. We might conclude that everything can stay the same, but we might also conclude that we need a new mechanism of some kind. Do not make us wait until the end; let us start this discussion now!

Political group: PSE