Toespraak Eurocommissaris Kroes over de uitdagingen van het mededingingsbeleid (en)
Neelie Kroes
European Commissioner for Competition Policy
Competition Policy challenges in 2008
100th meeting of the OECD Competition Committee
Paris, February 20, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen, my predecessor Professor Monti, Chairman.
First - congratulations. You are 50 years old and still going from strength to strength.
You are at the forefront of creating a global competition culture.
This is crucial: we can make laws, run cases, and reach decisions, but it is when we change cultures - that is when we have a deeper and longer-lasting effect.
Your ability to promote best practices through open debate, peer review, consensus and soft convergence is, I think, a model that will continue to serve you and others in the competition field well in the years to come.
The challenge facing a competition authority is vast - but our experience in the EU shows that your work makes it easier.
Your 2005 peer review of EU competition policy helped us to benchmark our performance, and we will need more of this type of activity. In the EU we also greatly benefit from OECD work on common principles of competition law policy and enforcement which has inspired European practice.
Your 1995 Recommendation on Cooperation between Member Countries (1995), for example, is still an important reference point when we enter into new cooperation arrangements.
And as the number of competition systems around the world multiplies, your work is in ever-greater demand.
Dozens of emerging market economies around the world now look to you for leadership and evidence as to how they can build competition regimes or improve their policies.
And while we can be proud of our past, it is to these questions of the future that we must turn together.
In what new ways are we going to strengthen competition in 2008 and beyond?
We face difficult questions this year.
How do we answer the voices calling for a return to the old ways?
How can we support each other at a multilateral level?
Modern competition policy is global competition policy.
What happens in Europe today, affects stock prices in the United States tomorrow. Cartels in one jurisdiction affect supply on the other side of the world.
These facts are inescapable.
But there are critics who believe there are risks in pressing for sound competition rules in one's home market when others may not do the same in their own domestic arena.
There are critics who say we in the EU move too fast for others to keep pace.
Do they really believe we can create a level playing field by standing still?
Or do they really want to fall back on the 'ghost' of economic protectionism - a failed policy now portrayed as patriotism?
Whatever the motive, we cannot afford to stand still - still less go back.
We cannot go back to the old inefficient ways just because it suits a narrow political interest from time to time.
Imagine an Olympics where the medals were handed out to friends, instead of the best athletes. An Olympics where they did not check for cheats. It would not work.
Nor will closing Europe down. This is not a solution - it is an expensive sticking plaster, with the bill to be paid by every man, woman and child. A bill not just measured in euros, but in fewer jobs, slower growth, less innovation and poorer products.
We have to tell the world that Europe is open for business, and that it means business.
Yet sceptics argue that different countries have different approaches, different pressures and different priorities.
They say we cannot all move together.
Of course there are differences. There always will be. But diverse interests can still pull in the same direction.
The OECD and the EU are both proof of this. We are built on the foundation that we can all move forward together.
Whatever the cultural or legal differences -we achieve more by working together.
In the EU family we have established market economies alongside new ones.
But the underlying foundation is that we believe that we can make it work - and our results show that EU Competition Policy (and through it, the internal market) is working.
Our momentum is proof that it is possible to spread this spirit of cooperation and this striving for excellence.
We have to support good practice, and build the evidence that will allow us to make the case that competition policy is a crucial part of achieving economic reform.
It is true that competition officials are not the first people to whom the world turns for advice on broader economic policy issues.
But this is where the reputation of the OECD is critical.
The OECD is a master of providing the background and evidence needed to persuade decision-makers. Its reputation for serious economic analysis is a priceless part of this persuasion.
For example the OECD study on "The Benefits of Liberalising Product Markets" suggests that aligning the different European national economic policies with the most competition friendly regimes would result in huge benefits for the European economy overall: a 2 to 3.5 % growth in GDP per capita.
The Competition Committee has also been at the forefront of competition policy capacity-building in the past 15 years.
There are now over 100 competition authorities around the world and in a world of limited resources, the demand will always exceed the supply of competition skills.
So the OECD Regional Centres are priceless. You at the centre of this market for new skills. - sharing knowledge between the experienced and the new competition regimes. I thank you.
Just as the EU has reached out to new members and adapted to new situations, so does the OECD.
It is pleasing that you have recently started talks with five countries (Chile, Estonia, Israel, the Russian Federation and Slovenia) on their accession to the OECD convention.
Alongside the OECD's support to the G8, your dialogue with emerging economies on key issues such as foreign direct investment, good governance, the environment, intellectual property rights is highly relevant to competition policy.
This is because of the clear need for competition policy to be concerned with all facets of government policy which have an influence on competitive behaviour.
A good example is promoting international trade and investment through competition policy.
Competition policy that is not integrated with other policies will not have the effect we desire.
Of course, you are no strangers to these arguments. In fact, the bridges you are making to non-OECD countries show you are well equipped to act as a hub for globalisation generally.
Let me now say a few words on my plans for EU competition policy in 2008.
2008 priorities
In 2008 my priority is to keep consumers at the heart of our policies.
Let me touch on communication, sector inquiries, state aid and cartels to illustrate this.
Inhoudsopgave van deze pagina:
Competition policy has been central to the European project since its inception.
But understanding of competition policy is mostly confined to specialist audiences like this one, or lawyers and economists.
I am proud of the professional competition community - it is essential to the achievements I have described today. But on its own it is not enough.
We need to be better at explaining WHY our approach is better, instead of just stating that it is.
Of course our daily enforcement actions should prove the benefits of good competition policies - but we can't assume these actions will speak for themselves, or win every audience.
The wider public does not have to understand our technical language, but they must have the chance to see that we work to make their lives a bit easier better.
Given competition delivers benefits to every European, every day - a large audience should see that our efforts are not just for big businesses.
They are also for small entrepreneurs, and working families, and individuals starting out in life.
Ultimately competition means more jobs, stronger businesses and affordable products and services.
It means making Europe an engine for business, jobs and long-term stability.
With so much at stake we must be prepared to work hard and for a long time to make sure this message is understood.
We need to be clear who we need to try hardest to reach with this message.
In our consumption-driven economies it is consumers who can be the most powerful catalysts for the competition culture we are seeking.
As we think of consumers, it is also important to touch on our sector inquiries now
We are quite proud of our sector inquiries.
Not only do they improve general knowledge about a given market, and give consumers comfort that someone is looking after their interest - but they represent a clear step towards a pro-active competition policy.
Rather than reacting to wrongdoing, we are seeking it out, and seeing where it might happen next.
In retail banking, energy, and now pharmaceuticals - we see inquiries with consumer interests are in the centre of our enforcement action.
We must make sure consumers benefit from liberalisation and the common market.
Now I come to State Aid ...
Our State Aid policy is often misrepresented - a perfect example of my point about the need for better communication in fact.
And it is important to set the record straight.
We are pursuing less and better state aid - but not as an ideological end in itself.
No competition policy is an end in itself.
It is an instrument for protecting a bigger picture - the picture of growth and jobs and fairness for all 27 members of the EU family.
We do not want to see subsidy wars or big companies and governments simply bullying consumers to unfairly increase profits.
We support good aid that invests in R & D or innovation etc. Such aid, if well targeted, can support the type of industrial policy that Europe needs.
And it is this sort of aid that can help deliver the EU's agenda for growth and prosperity, which we call the Lisbon Agenda, and Europe's long term future.
Of course 2008 will see us continue our fight against cartels.
While our well-known cases do inevitably send a message across all markets to think twice before engaging in a cartel, this is only the surface of the fight against cartels.
The proposal for direct settlements in cartel cases, as well the damages White Paper, will be a major part of this fight.
A multi-billion euro enforcement deficit exists - that is to say that wrongdoers are getting away with far to much and they owe their victims billions of euros. Finding ways to fix this injustice is a priority for the Commission in 2008.
I am also keen to make the point that law-abiding businesses, as well as individual consumers, are also victims of cartels - and our proposals will seek give them access to the compensation they are owed.
In conclusion today, I would like to say some final words about the ongoing legacy of the Competition Committee of the OECD.
In areas such as merger review or information sharing in international cartel cases, OECD recommendations have become widely accepted best practices.
The Competition Committee's roundtables have proved a key forum for dialogue between competition authorities from all over the world.
A lot has been achieved.
But neither of us should rest!
We have much to share and learn from each other.
As a competition community we can only move forward together if we talk, share, compare and receive scrutiny.
And there is a willing audience for this agenda.
So, while we have many challenges ahead - let us be confident in our approach to competition policy.
It is true that we have chosen to take the hard road together - of innovation and tough standards and level playing fields. But the prize is much greater if we succeed.
We will be able to say that our work helped the globalisation process to deliver on its promises.
And so I leave you with the thought that you have every reason to believe the next 100 meetings of the Competition Committee will be even better than the first 100.
I offer you my congratulations and my cooperation.
Thank you.