Third Report on Competition Policy (addendum to the 'Seventh General Report on the Activities of the Communities).

Abstract

In what has become an essential and regular part of the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Commission, this report sums up developments in competition policy in 1973. This was a year when three new Member States joined the Community; as a result not only was the field of application of the competition rules extended to countries in which major firms are established but also, as a result of recruiting new officials from those Member States, the Commission's experience was considerably broadened. The report is inevitably of a somewhat fragmentary nature, since it simply sets out the results of a single year whereas the main lines of our competition policy have been developing more progressively and continuously than that, particularly as the Commission only gradually outlines new approaches through its decisions in individual cases. The Commission proposal on merger control has already provoked extensive discussion between the various European institutions (especially with the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee) and with trade associations and trade unions represented at Community level. Although the need for merger control has been recognized and the broad lines of the Commission proposal have been approved in principle, certain objections have nevertheless been raised. Criticisms are directed particularly at the fact that advance control of mergers is proposed, at the effects of the regulation on other -Community objectives, in particular as regards employm(!nt and industrial policy, and at the social protection of workers. The Commission is convinced that the process which has been set in train will produce balanced legal rules which will help to maintain effective competition in the general interest of the Community.