At the meeting with the Committee on Economic and
Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament on 11 January 2000,
Competition Commissioner Mario Monti explained the
Commission’s action intended at modernising EC competition
policy. The speech focused on two issues. First, State aid policy
and, second, enforcement of Articles 81 and 82.
Monti highlighted the most important recent
measures concerning State aid: the procedural regulation which
entered into force in April 1999; the 1998 Regulation enabling the
Commission to adopt group exemptions for certain categories of
horizontal aid; the drafts of the group exemption Regulations
concerning aid for SMEs, for training and the de minimis rule
adopted in July; new rules on rescue and restructuring aid to
enterprises in difficulty which entered into force in October; and
the Commission’s Notice "on the application of Articles 87
and 88 to state aid in the form of guarantees".
As regards regional aid, Monti focused on the main
elements of the reform launched by the Commission in 1997: the
concentration of regional state aid which needs to be based on its
characteristic as exceptional positive discrimination in favour of
those regions most in need; the reduction of the maximum allowed
regional aid intensities; the transfer from the Commission to the
Member States (under certain conditions) of the power to propose
the appropriate areas for assistance.
On the issue of transparency, the competition
policy services are examining measures to accompany existing
sources of State aid information. The 8th Survey on State aid is
being expanded further, and preparations are underway on the
upgrade of the internal State aid information system, with a view
to developing a state aid register and possibly a future
scoreboard.
Monti also described the modernisation of the rules
concerning the enforcement of Articles 81 and 82 and, in
particular, the reform proposed in the Commission’s White
Paper on the application of Article 81(3). In his opinion, it is
essential for the Commission to focus its action on the most
important cases and to bring the decision making power closer to
the European citizen in order to increase the acceptance of
competition policy. (SPEECH/00/4)