Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission’s White Paper on modernisation of the European competition rules has ignited intense and lively debate amongst interested members of the public. The reactions from experts and persons affected range from complete rejection to unconditional support. What is this White Paper, in fact, about? The existing system of European competition rules was set up in the early years of the Community. This system, which is based on a centralised application and approvals procedure, was certainly appropriate for the conditions prevailing at the time. This procedure made a substantial contribution to the development of a European competition culture. However, the framework conditions have fundamentally changed in the 40 years since it came into being. The Community of 6 has enlarged to one of 15 and is set to undergo further enlargement to encompass 27 members. But the system has hardly changed at all. That is why there is an urgent need for reform, and no one takes issue with this in debate. Nevertheless, certain critics are of the opinion that the Commission’s proposals go too far. The Commission wants to abolish the application and approvals procedure and enhance the role of national authorities and courts in the implementation of the competition rules. In other words, this would mean a transition from an authorisation system to one of legal exemption. However, the prohibition principle, and this is important, is to be retained. In principle, I take the view that we ought, when an authority accused of tending towards bureaucracy and centralism, submits a proposal for debureaucratisation and decentralisation, to at least give this serious consideration. According to the Commission's proposal, it all revolves around competition-inhibiting agreements between enterprises and abuses of powerful positions. However, the notification obligation, with respect to state aid and corporate concentrations, is to be retained. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs gave its blessing in principle to these proposals put forward by the Commission, with only one vote against and two abstentions. However, it will only be possible to form a conclusive assessment once the currently awaited bills produced by the Commission are published. Whilst I may endorse the Commission’s proposals in principle, still there are a number of points that warrant improvement, or at least clarification. I would like to go into some of these points briefly. Many critics of the White Paper maintain that decentralisation will jeopardise the consistent application of Community legislation. Not all national authorities, in particular the courts, are in a position as yet to fulfil the role the Commission has in mind for them when it comes to the application of the competition rules. Firstly, in the course of the last few decades the national monopolies have familiarised themselves with the implementation of the competition rules to an adequate degree. Secondly, the national courts will be empowered to implement Articles 81 (1), 82 and 86 in accordance with the current administration of justice. Nonetheless, it is still extremely important for the Commission to support the national authorities and courts with group exemption regulations, guidelines and notices. Furthermore, cooperation between the national authorities and the Commission, as well as amongst the national authorities themselves, must be strengthened. As far as the competence of the national courts is concerned, we recommend in this report that specialised courts be set up for dealing with monopolies law proceedings. These are already in existence in certain Member States and they have proved successful. Entrepreneurs, for their part, fear a loss of legal certainty. In order to guard against this, the enterprises should, in certain cases, continue to have the opportunity of being given prior clarification by the Commission. These are only a few, albeit central aspects that must be taken into account where the modernisation of the European competition rules is concerned. That said, the process is still very much in its infancy. Discussion will continue until such time as legislative proposals are eventually produced. However, I am convinced of the fact that the White Paper has put us on the right path. A European competition culture has come into being in the course of the last few decades. The decentralisation proposed by the Commission accords with the principle of subsidiarity, which has, in fact, now been firmly established in the Treaty. This leads to increased implementation of the European competition rules at national and regional level, thereby making it possible for the European competition culture to be placed on a broader basis. Finally, I would like to say that the competition policy reform we are introducing here is a necessity and that it is going to be absolutely necessary, in this context, to clarify that the European Union’s competition policy is an essential pre-requisite to the success of a social market economy. Both the Commission and Parliament must do more than they have done hitherto to get the message across that competition policy, competition between enterprises, and the fact that the European Commission is supervising this, are first and foremost matters which have the interests of the citizens at heart. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE