Mr President, I would like, in beginning my speech regarding the White Paper, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau. The fact that the Group of the is very much in agreement with your report is clearly demonstrated by the fact that only one amendment has been presented during this procedure. We are, therefore, in agreement with the report, Commissioner, as well as the broad outlines of the White Paper. Since the Treaty entered into force, Community law on competition has been one of the tenets of Community policy. After almost forty years of being in force, these rules were beginning to show signs of exhaustion. For this reason, modernisation was essential. That modernisation came to be particularly necessary for five reasons. Firstly, the authorisation system; secondly, decentralised application; thirdly, procedural rules; fourthly, judicial application; and fifthly and finally, excessive red tape. The system of individual approvals needed urgent reform, as was unanimously requested by specialised companies, academics and lawyers. I have not attended a single forum of specialists in competition law which has not requested a change to the system. A system, such as the current one, which is capable of making so few decisions, be they approvals or prohibitions, is something less than a valid system. National competition authorities were able to apply Articles 81(1) and 82 for some time. However, they could not apply Article 81(3), which, to a certain extent, prevented the coherent application of Article 81(1). You will know that there are currently two preliminary issues before the Court of Justice, both brought by German courts, which question the feasibility of applying 81(1) without being able to apply 81(3). A reform of this point was therefore also necessary. The procedure in the field of competition is basically contained in Regulation 1762. The voices in favour of its amendment were unanimous. The fact that it did not establish a genuine procedure, that it did not establish time limits, that it did not regulate access for interested parties to the files, or that the right to defence was not properly recognised, were factors which led to the unanimous demand for reform. The Court of Justice accepted some time ago that Community competition law could be applied by the legal bodies of the Member States and in 1994, the Commission published a communication on this subject. It was therefore necessary to facilitate this approach. One of the most frequent criticisms of Community competition law is its excessive red tape. As a consequence of the continental legal tradition, consideration of whether certain agreements are anti-competitive or not depends more on an analysis of their clauses than on their effects on the market. It was therefore necessary to introduce an economic analysis. The White Paper intends to resolve these problems and we therefore support these proposals. It is also true that we note certain deficiencies which have come to light in the report. Amongst these, firstly, is the fact that, despite trying to modernise Articles 81 and 82, Article 81 and not Article 82 carries exclusive weight. At the moment, with inter-company agreements and the privatisation of monopolies preserving dominant positions and even consolidating them, the combating of abusive conduct is becoming particularly important. Secondly, Regulation 1762 must be repealed and replaced with a new regulation. For these reasons, we are going to vote in favour of the report. However, if some of the amendments are accepted, particularly those presented by the Group, we would consider the report to be stripped of its value and to have become an inconsistent document, lacking in rigour and, in that event, we would reconsider our support.

Political group: PSE