Activities of Reinhard BÜTIKOFER related to 2019/2131(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on competition policy – annual report 2019
Amendments (9)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Emphasises that a globn international level playing field in a rules-based multilateral trading system is key for European companies, including SMEs, to boost growth, ensure a stable and predictable, including European companies, in particular SMEs, as well as European workers and consumers. This is why a policy of reciprocity should contribute to boosting sustainable economic development and ensuring a safe and healthy environment, and retain their competitivenessccording to the EU’s international obligations, and pursuing enhanced competitiveness on the basis of sustainability, as well as to secure existing jobs and create new ones in the EU, since an increasing number of jobs are dependent on global value chaining social stability and the preservation and new creation of decent jobs. In this context, stresses the need for increased transparency, sustainability and corporate accountability in global value chains in order to contribute to level the playing field and facilitate upward convergence on standards, and calls on the EU to establish a legal framework for mandatory due diligence in global value chains as a necessary step to achieve this;
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Underlines that SMEs play a vital role in international trade, accounting for an estimated 30 % of the EU’s goods exports to the rest of the world1 ; recalls that, in order to help SMEs cope with the greater challenges of entering new markets and enable them to compete on their own merits, EU trade and competition policy should contribute to an SME-friendly trade environment; calls on the Commission to modernize the EU SME definition in particular by including qualitative criteria such as the linkage between ownership, management and control. _________________ 1https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/International_trade_in _goods_by_enterprise_size
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the Commission to ensure that EU competition policy promotes fair competition and reciprocal trading conditions at EU and global level with the further aim of strengthening our own industry in the EUthe EU industry's efforts to contribute to innovation and to a just transition towards a climate neutral EU economy in line with the Paris commitments and targets; Reiterates its call for the Commission and member states to adopt reinforced trade defence instruments to combat unfair commercial practices, taking into account social and environmental dumping; calls, therefore, for unfair trading practices to be addressed effectively by making full use of the available instruments, developing new, effective tools and tackling the distortive effects of foreign state ownership and subsidies in the internal market, in particular where EU funding is involvedcluding in the context of the envisioned border adjustment mechanism; welcomes, against this backdrop, the new Commission’s intention to strengthen the foreign direct investment screening mechanism, and calls for discusss soon as sufficient experience with the present legislation has been collected; calls for the finalizations onf the EU’s international procurement instrument to be resumed;by 2020; calls for a strengthening of the anti-subsidy instrument by including a subsidy-control mechanism; stresses that EU competition policy needs to be consistent with, and contribute to, the fulfilment of the climate neutrality objective and calls on the Commission to remove policy contradictions by reforming the state aid guidelines for environmental protection and energy, especially with regard to climate impact in order to avoid unfair competitive advantages for practices of third country firms.
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls, moreover, on the Commission either to further enhance global cooperation on competition matters or, including pertinent dialogue with US, Japan and other partners; calls on the Commission to ensure fair conditions for competition viato also be include in bilateral trade agreements and in international forumsa; fully supports the Commission’s efforts in the context of the ongoing World Trade Organisation (WTO) reform to update the multilateral rules on subsidies or, including Appellate Body reform, to make multilateral rules on subsidies effectively binding, by strengthening WTO subsidy notification requirements, aligning forces on the "public body" interpretation in WTO anti-subsidy rules and broadening the scope of WTO subsidy coverage; to pursue sectoral initiatives to adequately address subsidies at international level;.
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on the Commission to continue negotiating ambitious, enforceable competition and State aid provisions in all future trade agreements as part of a holistic and ambitious EU trade policy; Recalls that competition must go hand in hand with sustainability, therefore calls on the Commission to equally strengthen the legal enforceability of Trade and Sustainable Development Chapters in all its trade and investment agreements and to ratchet social and environmental standards.
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Calls on the Commission to ensure that competition rules are compatible with the modern economy and best serve European consumers and workers by fully taking into account the impact of the digitalisation of the economy on how global markets operate; welcomes, in this context, the ongoing plurilateral WTO e-commerce negotiations to ensure that companies can compand also by strengthening consumer protection in global online marketes worldwide on a level playing field based on global trading ruleithout detriment to European data protection standards.
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Calls on the Commission to revise the European competition policy by obliging competition authorities to take into account regional as well as international markets in evaluating the legitimacy of mergers in order to protect the long-term viability of Europe's industrial base.
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 c (new)
Paragraph 6 c (new)
6 c. Calls on the Commission to pay particular attention to the role of international standard-setting for fair competition; insist that the EU should strengthen its multilateral approach to standard-setting, in particular in the context of ISO and IEC; warns against nationalisation of standard-setting approaches, particularly in the context of China's Belt and Road Initiative and other Connectivity enhancing strategies; calls on the Commission to establish a high-level coordinator for standardisation policy in this context.