PURPOSE: to facilitate the Commissions access to
market information necessary for carrying out its tasks in order to
achieve a smooth functioning of the internal market.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European
Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative
procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: despite all the progress made,
significant difficulties in the establishment and functioning of
the internal market remain and European citizens and
undertakings are unable to reap the full benefits of the internal
market.
One of the difficulties encountered in ensuring
internal market rules are complied with is timely access to
reliable data. Suboptimal information increases the risk of the
emergence of difficulties to trade in the internal market resulting
from uncoordinated national enforcement activities.
The proposed Regulation seeks to help the
Commission monitor and enforce internal market rules by
enabling it to timely obtain comprehensive and reliable
quantitative and qualitative information from selected market
players through narrowly targeted information requests where a
serious difficulty with the application of Union law risks
undermining the attainment of an important Union policy
objective.
The Commission already has investigative powers to
enforce the EU competition rules necessary for the functioning of
the internal market. The use of these powers has proven very
effective in ensuring that those rules are applied: for instance,
in the field of State aid.
The proposal follows the same lines as the Commission
communication entitled Upgrading
the Single Market: more opportunities for people and
business and its communication EU
Law: Better Results through Better Application in which
the Commission highlighted the importance of a robust and efficient
enforcement system.
IMPACT ASSESSMENT: the chosen option was the
introduction of an investigative tool of last resort for the
Commission to use where suspected obstacles to the functioning of
the internal market may exist and the requested firm level
information is necessary for timely and effective decision-making
and not readily available through other means.
CONTENT: the proposal entrusts the Commission with the
power to request information directly from undertakings and
associations of undertakings for addressing a serious problem
with the application of Union law which risks undermining the
attainment of an important Union policy objective. It does not
create an additional enforcement scheme to be applied by the
Commission.
Scope: the Regulation
shall apply in the following areas: the internal market,
agriculture and fisheries, other than the conservation of marine
biological resources; transport; environment; energy.
The information sought should relate to the
application of relevant Union law. It may, for instance, consist
of:
- factual market data, including cost structure, pricing
policy, products or services characteristics or geographical
distribution of customers and suppliers);
- undertakings or associations of
undertakings fact-based analysis of the functioning of the
internal market, such as in relation to perceived regulatory and
entry barriers or to costs of cross-border operations.
Procedure: the proposal
sets out the conditions and procedure for requesting
information:
- it limits the Commission's power to act as a
measure of last resort: the Commission must adopt a prior
decision stating its intention to use the power in question,
explaining the suspected serious problem, the information sought,
why such information is needed, why other means to obtain such
information failed. The Commission is obliged to notify it to the
Member State or States concerned without delay;
- the Commission may require undertakings or
associations of undertakings to provide information by simple
request or by decision and it must inform the Member State
where the recipient of the request is situated;
- it deals with the answers to the requests and the
protection of confidential information.
Fines and penalties: the
proposal establishes the rules on fines and periodic penalty
payments if a respondent supplies inaccurate or misleading
information or if, in response to request made by formal Commission
decision, it provides incomplete information or no information at
all.
Micro-undertakings are
exempted from this proposal in order to avoid imposing
disproportionate administrative burden on them.
BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS: it is estimated that the
Commission could incur annual data collection and analysis costs of
between EUR 120 000 and EUR 430 000, assuming five information
requests are made per year.
The Commission costs indicated above would not require
any new budgetary needs, only the redeployment of existing
staff and infrastructure.