Meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs&nbsp;(ECON) on the Structured Dialogue with Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, Brian HAYES (EPP, IE), Bernd LUCKE (ECR, DE), and Ramon TREMOSA i BALCELLS (ALDE, ES).

Brussels

meeting

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

LUCKE, Bernd (ECR, DE)

HAYES, Brian (EPP, IE)

annual competition policy report 2015 (T)

VESTAGER, Margrethe (DK, CE)

TREMOSA i BALCELLS, Ramon (ALDE, ES)

Structured Dialogue with Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition: extracts from the meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, <p>We have also been reviewing the general block exemption regulation, which allows again national governments to grant state-aid, without ever calling the Commission, in quite a number of cases. It already covers 90% of state-aid schemes, and we plan to extend further with small airports and airports.</p>

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, We have a fight against cartels, and some of them as I said very much hardware. In July, we imposed the largest cartel fine in the Commission history, more than 2,9 billion euros on 5 truck-makers.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, when the developer of drugs pays its competitors not to introduce cheaper generic drugs, that obviously raises cause for patients and for the health system. So I am very happy that the general court has confirmed the decision to fine Lundbeck and several makers of generic drugs, nearly 150 million euros for illegal pay for delay agreements.

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, It is clear that we could do more to help national competition authorities. If European legislation, presumably by directive, is the part of the answer, I hope to table a proposal next year.

SOUNDBITE (English), Brian HAYES (EPP, IE), On the one hand the Comission has claimed that Apple did not pay enough tax in Ireland, which constitutes the 13 billion amount, and yet it recognises that tax might be due elsewhere. Do you recognise that contradiction?

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, So basically it is an open question, has this distribution arrangement changed into something where part of the value is generated in other Member States? This can be very difficult to assess. So we are not suggesting that there are hidden state-aid cases or any of the sort. It is an open and basically neutral question, if the arrangements of Apple still is a distribution arrangement or if value is being created in some other Member States where Apple supplies customers with different Apple products.

SOUNDBITE (German), Bernd LUCKE (ECR, DE), The Commission stated in an official opinion that these selective tax advantages do exist. But, it didn t say which competitors you are comparing with? So what companies did you look at to be able to work out that Apple was receiving a selective tax advantage?

<p>SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, It is not to take individual companies and compare those, it is to see how the company in question, with the tax rulings in question, are situated compared to the sort of the general system.</p>

SOUNDBITE (English), Ramon TREMOSA i BALCELLS (ALDE, ES), On the shopping anti-trust cases, last time we met you told us that your services were finalising to review of the extradatory quest into Google. an we expect the next steps before the end of this year?

SOUNDBITE (English), Margrethe VESTAGER, Member of the EC in charge of Competition, On the Google shopping comparison case, what came out of going through all the very very substantial answers coming from the statement of objection was that we were able to strengthen our case. And to issue a supplementary statement of objection. And I am as sorry as you and everyone else about anti-trust work taking a lot of time, but it is also a sign that it is a case that is building in strength.