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we all hold the view that competition is vital to the economy and requires there to be efficiency and i believe we should also permit competition in the regions |
competition between the regions will certainly strengthen rather than weaken the european union |
i would cite by way of example the issue of job creation schemes savings banks and regional banks and gütesiegel |
here a region has by its own efforts created a means of marketing its own products |
this own initiative must not be destroyed by european intervention |
i believe there is also a need to raise the de minimis regulation |
we should do everything within our power to force the regions into a situation where they have to compete with each other |
my second point relates to discussion about competition and the social market economy although i am not going to talk about market failure just now |
i have already referred to the regional and savings bank sector but i would just like to focus on a matter one hears again and again in certain quarters |
these days someone who lives in an old people' s home is accommodated within the social field |
however i could also regard them as a customer and i believe we should enter into rather clear and timely discussion on the ways in which the social field that is evolved structures stifle competition |
apart from that i could refer to any customers any sector as customers and thereby have a highly destructive effect on social fields |
to conclude i would just like to say something on the principle of subsidiarity i believe it to be of vital importance that where member states allow regions and local authorities to raise taxes they should continue to be able to do so and not be subject to across theboard regulation by europe |
thank you very much mr radwan |
i would like to congratulate you on what is referred to in german parliamentaryspeak inappropriately in your case as a maiden speech |
mr president commissioner i am speaking on behalf of my fellow member robert goebbels who is unable to attend due to a political commitment |
within the committee on economic and monetary affairs the jonckheer report has given rise to bitter controversy on the subject of the operation of the market |
a slim rightwing majority succeeded in removing any reference to market failures |
even if the majority in this house were to adhere to this ultraliberal idea of a supposedly perfect market it would not make any difference to the real world |
economic relationships in the real world adequately demonstrate that eliminating all public intervention in the market does not in any way bring about perfect competition and the optimum distribution of resources |
while since the dawn of time the market has been the key forum for human interchange it has never been perfect |
the market favours the short term and immediate profits |
on the market the balance of power between supply and demand are generally to the detriment of the weakest parties consumers and workers |
in order to function the market needs rules |
the necessary and valuable spirit of initiative must be offset by a sense of responsibility towards society |
we european socialists are in favour of a market economy with a social purpose |
the market is not an end in itself it must help to improve the human condition |
the european union or individual states must not take over from economic operators but public authorities must define the rules and objectives which enable the economy to develop in a sustainable fashion |
finally aid can enable restructuring offer training save jobs and thus knowhow |
the main objective of the union' s competition policy cannot be to reduce the overall level of aid |
this aid must be aligned with the objectives of the union particularly economic and social cohesion sustainable development and research |
the commission must track down the illegal aid and the aid which actually hinders the internal market |
it would be a serious mistake to eliminate all public aid |
the internet is not a product of the market but the result of research financed by the american army |
the world wide web which has enabled the meteoric development of the information society was developed by cern in geneva once again with public aid |
the german government' s intervention to save the holzmann group was criticised as an unjustifiable constraint upon the market economy |
president duisenberg even attempted to attribute the weakness the entirely relative weakness of the euro in relation to the dollar to this state interventionism |
i did not hear mr duisenberg criticising the intervention of the american monetary authorities to save the hedge fund ltcm |
wishing to save 60 000 jobs is apparently a sin against the market but saving capital does not seem to present any problem for the advocates of the free market |
public monies are used in order to repair the damage caused by international speculation as was the case in mexico asia and brazil |
human labour on the other hand is considered to be a simple factor in the equation |
we socialists reject the liberals' naïve optimism on this point |
we want a true culture of competition in europe |
the state hand must still be clearly seen to regulate the market and the commission must act as judge |
mr president commissioner i want to begin by thanking mr rapkay for a good report and constructive cooperation |
i want to thank you commissioner monti for your outstanding cooperation and i want to tell you that as we enter the new millennium you have an especially important role it is your job to tidy up the mess left by national governments |
these may well have grand visions when it comes to competition policy but their capacity to wreak havoc seems boundless |
let me mention the latest examples we have seen holzmann a company which receives considerable aid from the german government sawmills in former east germany and especially aid to shipyards |
these are three areas in which many danish companies are experiencing major problems and are being squeezed out of their markets |
i want to say to mr poos that i very much agree with mr duisenberg that these examples show that some eu member states are not in a position to restructure their economies and to that extent are helping to undermine the value of the euro |
the group of the european liberal democrat and reform party has tabled 80 amendments in the committee all concerning state aid |
these are amendments which we believe will lead to transparency and openness which is very important with a view to making the internal market work |
i should like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the committee for supporting the amendments tabled by the group of the european liberal democrat and reform party |
as i say our amendments concern transparency and i should like to emphasise the amendment which urges the commission to propose uniform criteria and conditions for the type of state aids we consider to be lawful specifically in order to ensure that companies can predict what their situation will be |
another issue is that of what we are to do when state aid is declared unlawful |
how do we ensure that unlawful state aid is paid back |
at present there are no common rules in this area and we vigorously urge the commission to make a point of harmonising the rules on repayment |
this is the way forward if we are to ensure uniform conditions of competition |
finally we propose keeping both a register as mentioned by a number of my fellow meps and also a scoreboard showing where the member states at present stand with regard to state aid |
you have shown us the way mr monti with the single market scoreboard |
it was this which inspired us to propose the same thing with regard to state aid |
i very much hope that you commissioner monti will support these amendments and i look forward to your comments and to finding out where you stand on this matter |
to conclude i want to welcome the commission' s xviiith report on competition policy on which once again a good deal of work has been done |
but as i have already mentioned our overriding objectives ought still to be those of transparency and openness |
there is still a need to tighten up in the areas mentioned and there is therefore good reason for continuing to work resolutely towards solving the problems concerning the lack of transparency and openness in the area of state aid |
this is especially necessary in relation to the forthcoming enlargement of the union and i should like to thank mr jonckheer who in his report has considered very thoroughly the problems associated with enlargement and with ensuring that the applicant countries are able to meet our criteria as well as with ensuring common conditions of competition |
as liberals and greens we clearly have different opinions on how the world should look but we are well on the way to agreement as to our objectives and we shall try to find reasonable solutions to our problems |
mr president commissioner there are just two questions which must be answered |
are state aid to business or intercompany agreements legitimate in a market economy and who must supervise these exceptions to the absolute rules of the market economy |
regarding the first point we say quite clearly that in order to take into consideration the requirements of sustainable development which the european union has endorsed it is essential that in some instances there is state aid to businesses be it in the form of tax exemptions special taxation or even direct aid |
it is also legitimate for there to be intercompany agreements and voluntary restraint agreements since all these agreements make it possible to reduce the detrimental effects of competition on social or ecological requirements |
so our clear response is that yes such aid and such agreements are legitimate but we say that every single one of these agreements must be expressly justified |
the von wogau report proposes referring supervision of the legitimacy of individual cases to national level |
we feel this is relatively dangerous but all the same we shall vote in favour of it because we recognise that the commission cannot do everything |
we demand that the greatest possible transparency should be in place and that greater powers of investigation be granted to the commission in order to check the legitimacy of such exceptions after the fact |
mr president once again we are debating the european union' s competition policy |
but let us stop to consider the circumstances in which this debate is taking place and the conclusions to which it should bring us |
the overriding features of today' s economy are massive mergers and acquisitions involving huge companies with a market monopoly and the emergence of frighteningly powerful multinational groups |
should we not be discussing this issue |
we need a competition policy which can and will introduce controls on the activities of these privatesector monopolies |
certain sectors of european industry such as the shipbuilding industry air transport and the steel industry which have been hard hit by existing competition policy have suffered tremendously |
they have lost their status and a significant slice of the world market and hundreds of thousands of workers have been made redundant |
when will we debate that |
the scandalous concentration of power in sectors of strategic importance is giving speculative multinational groups economies the size of entire states and member states of the union at that |
and yet we keep on weakening the public sector and we are ready and willing to tighten competition policy yet further by qualifying public procurement contracts placed with publicsector corporations as state aid |
at the same time unemployment is spiralling as a result of the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs |
workers are facing a massive attack on their employment and social rights |
consumers see their standard of living being eroded poverty spreading and the public sector and production base in most countries in the union being dismantled and dissolved in the name of unadulterated and catastrophic competition in the name of the absolute market economy and the promotion of the monopolistic interests of big business |
we consider the competition policy to be responsible for all this and are totally opposed to it |
mr president commissioner in the course of this pivotal year prior to the changeover to the single currency the commission has deployed every effort to ensure the birth of the euro in a favourable environment |
the competition policy has as far as these resources permitted contributed to this event |
for our part we remain staunchly opposed to the single currency which far from bringing us the advantages and flexibility of a shared currency imprisons us in an artificial straitjacket which has been imposed on the peoples of europe |
having said that governing means planning it also means being responsible and in this new context which has been forced upon us competition law naturally has an essential role to play |
in this area the commission has given priority to a number of routes of action acting on the structure of markets by actively combating anticompetitive practices by refocusing its departments' supervisory activities only upon matters with a manifest community interest and by affirming its intention to modernise competition law |
as regards state aid it is essential to ensure that regulations are not made more complex and the introduction of a public register where all aid would be recorded does not seem advisable to us since this onerous commitment would quite naturally run counter to the attempts to simplify bureaucratic constraints |
finally on the subject of modernising the implementation of articles 85 and 86 of the treaty we do not think that decentralised application would necessarily be going in the right direction |
the commission is in fact retaining not only the power to take matters out of the jurisdiction of national authorities but clearly obliging the national jurisdictions to avoid disputing the decisions of the commission at all |
national states would thus become the secular arm of the commission regarding observance of the application of rules which they do not control |
in conclusion i would say that while some measures are heading in the right direction we shall of course remain vigilant in order to prevent the snowballing of federalism which if it were realised would be to the detriment of europe and the sovereignty of the states |
mr president commissioner we have a basically positive view of the commission' s white paper on competition particularly as regards the abolition of the system of notification and authorisation but we are also puzzled by several things |
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