Activites

• 1995/04/10 Final act published in Official Journal
• 1995/03/16 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T4-0102/1995 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the 23rd Commission report on competition policy. In its resolution, the European Parliament: - highlighted the interaction between competition policy and industrial policy; - felt that a series of amendments was needed to competition rules in order to improve transparency, procedural deadlines, legal security and control; - felt that the 1996 IGC should protect the Commission's political role in defining competition policy; Competition Policy in 1993: - welcomed the European competition policy implemented by the Commission in 1993 (liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, interventions on the international scene), but felt that, in future, obstacles to international trade should not be eliminated just by suppressing barriers of state origin and should also be based on the competitive behaviour of companies; - called on the Commission to consider how the application of competition rules could be decentralised; New requirements of competition policy: - called on the Commission to use every means at its disposal to prevent distortions of competition in sectors such as the media and new communications technologies; - called on the Commission to encourage bilateral and multilateral agreements on the application of competition rules, for example with the NAFTA, and called on the Commission to lobby the WTO to introduce international competition rules; - called on the Commission to eliminate the final obstacles to the internal market as quickly as possible; Extending the scope of competition policy: - stressed the need for the environmental standards applicable in the Member States to be harmonised upwards (e.g. eco-tax on energy); - stressed the need to harmonise social standards: the social opt out clause was an unacceptable distortion of competition rules; - proposed that the Commission insist on the need for restructuring and capacity-reduction programmes in industrial sectors with excess capacity and for a gradual reduction in state aid in the eastern European countries which have concluded association agreements with the Community; Sectoral problems: - called on the Commission to acknowledge the increasingly global nature of maritime transport and not to jeopardise European shipping operators; - called for the internal energy market to be created on the basis of a common energy policy which did not jeopardise security of supply or public service missions exercised by the companies in the sector; - called on the Commission to stipulate how it intended to interpret competition rules with reference to the problem of commission on interbank transfers; Competition policy and European citizens: - called on the Commission and the Member States to increase transparency and reconcile the liberalisation of sectors which have always provided public services with the need to offer such services in accordance with principles of equality, universality, continuity and transparency; State aid: - called on the Commission to submit a complete annual report on state aid granted for each Member State; - called on the Commission to apply the new principles governing state aid to air transport to the letter; - called on the Commission, in its next report, to give an account of and propose solutions to the obstacles to competition policy, aid controls and antidumping procedures.�

• 1995/03/15 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 1995/02/13 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0022/1995
• 1994/07/21 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1994/05/05 Non-legislative basic document published
  • COM(1994)0161 summary

    As with previous annual reports, the 23rd annual report on competition gives the Commission the opportunity to explain the main developments in competition policy and the main cases dealt with. 1993 was a year of major events in the history of the Community: the Treaty on European Union entered into force, the agreement on the European Economic Area was ratified and the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment was published. The Commission has therefore tried to predict what impact these three major events will have on competition policy and, conversely, why competition policy is needed in order to achieve the objectives which the Community has set itself. The 1993 report endeavours to be more ambitious than previous reports by proposing certain measures to allow competition policy to be adapted to the new Community priorities. Even if the fundamental principles enshrined in the Treaty are the same, they cannot be applied mechanically, without taking account of the context in which they impact and the basic objectives of the Community. In the light of these considerations, the Commission highlights matters which, in its view, are increasingly important: - the first point concerns the introduction of competition into monopoly sectors, where considerable progress has been made with telecommunications and steady progress has been made in liberalizing other monopoly sectors. These results deserve a mention due to the advantages gained from the initial liberalization of these sectors and from the beneficial impact of the trans-European networks on competition and employment; - the second point concerns the liberalization of sectors, especially the service sector, which have been highly protected in the past. The rate of progress in this area has been maintained; - finally, the third point highlighted is the growing international dimension of Community competition policy. The conclusion of the Uruguay Round on 15 December 1993, the ratification of the agreement on the European Economic Area, which entered into force on 1 January 1994, and the negotiations under way with the Central and Eastern European Countries are huge steps towards the liberalization of international trade and change the competitive environment in which Community competition policy is applied. In addition, the Commission points out that considerable progress has been made in eliminating government barriers to trade, such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers, and that the same pace need no longer be maintained here, and that the liberalization of regional or international trade will now mainly take the form of eliminating private-sector obstacles to trade and other distortions of competition.�

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: COM(1994)0161
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A4-0022/1995
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0102/1995

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)