Brussels, 16/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The newly elected president of the next European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, is laying great stress on the digital agenda for the first six months in the job and pressure is reportedly growing on the out-going Barroso Commission not to push through a hasty decision on the Google case.
Google, the US internet giant, offered a series of commitments in February to respond to the allegations of abuse of its dominant position on internet search and advertising.
Most recently, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, called on the Commission on Tuesday to take a cautious line with Google and not take decisions when, as he put it, half of Europe is on holiday. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia has recently said that he wanted to take a decision before the summer break, however. Rumours suggest that the out-going Commission president is far less sure about things than his Spanish colleague.
There are reported to be concerns about the next Commission's digital agenda. Accepting an agreement as it stands, which would be made binding for five years, would be a tough blow for small European companies. Although neither small nor European, the Yelp company could not have been set up today in the current Google-dominated online search environment, explained the head of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman, to Barroso at a dinner with other companies in San Francisco in May 2014. The European Commission, however, states that the Google issue was not raised at that dinner.
A few weeks after the meeting in May, Yelp decided to officially become a complainant, although it is a witness from the outset of the investigation. The Commission said at first that the complaint had been lodged too late to be taken into consideration on a par with the other 20 companies that have lodged complaints (see EUROPE 11119). Commission services have apparently told the company that they have accepted the formal complaint but have not said when the rejection letter will be sent.
Several EU commissioners, including Michel Barnier (Internal Market) and Gunther Oettinger (Energy), are not happy with the commitments offered by Google. In addition to Schulz's comments, two MEPs have written directly to Barroso asking him not to be over hasty on the question. The two MEPs say that the decision should be taken on solid foundations after assessing the impact of potential new legislation in the single digital market, especially the EU data protection regulation. They firmly believe that the decision should be taken by the new European Commission.
One of the plaintiff companies, Foundem, has responded to the letter it has received from the Commission, rejecting its complaint. Foundem strongly criticised the procedure and the time allowed to respond to the Commission's arguments. “The short timescale granted to us to respond was especially challenging in light of the extraordinary volume of fundamentally inaccurate or entirely baseless assertions contained in the Commission's Letter”, states Foundem, adding: '”Throughout the last two years of settlement negotiations, the Commission has repeatedly refused to provide us with any insight into its reasoning or thinking, either through informal dialogue or through the provision of documents such as the Commission's Preliminary Assessment or any of Google's submissions”. It believes that the complainant companies and Google have not been treated equally in either of these two respects.
Foundem says “the Commission's stated rationale and key arguments for adopting Google's proposals are erroneous and directly contradict the fundamental conclusions of its own March 2013 Preliminary Assessment”. It explains: “The Commission's Letter makes no attempt to explain how Google's proposals would do anything to address the problem the Commission was trying to solve in the first place - namely, the inability of rivals to compete against the insurmountable anti-competitive advantages Google affords its own services. Instead, for no apparent reason, the Commission devotes much of its Letter to explaining how Google's proposals might allow rivals to compete amongst themselves for the opportunity to hand Google a sizeable proportion of their profits. Remarkably, even these modest and largely irrelevant claims are wrong”.
Foundem concludes: “If the Commission proceeds on the basis set out in its Letter, it would have catastrophic consequences for the European Digital Economy and we (and no doubt many others) would appeal the decision”.
The Sunday Times quotes Commission sources, saying that the publishers of Germany's Bild (Alex Stringer) has been “given assurances by Juncker's team that, if elected, he would support them in their long-running battle with Google”. (EL)