Brussels, 19/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Commissioner in charge of competition, Mario Monti, expressed his dicontent on Friday with competition rules in force in the applicant countries and appealed to the governments of the future Member States immediately to place their anti-trust legislation and state aid rules in conformity with EU rules. "The general situation is alarming" in all the applicant countries, "especially for state aid", Mr Monti told a group of journalists. "It is urgent for all tax incentive and operating aid systems to be placed immediately in conformity with Community state aid rules", he stressed. Many of these tax incentive and investment support schemes are "clearly incompatible" with rules in force in the EU (Community acquis) and a number of them have been adopted by the applicants in flagrant violation of the undertakings they made within the framework of the Europe Agreements. Not only does the incompatibility of these competition rules have negative repercussions on the economies and consumers of the countries concerned, but it also runs counter to the "EU principle that the applicant states must adopt a competition discipline similar to that in the EU, well before accession", said Mr Monti. "If this discipline is lacking at the time of accession, there will be many doubts about the capacity of undertakings in the applicant countries to deal with the pressure of competition on the internal market in the enlarged Union", he explained. At a time when the EU is making every effort to strengthen discipline in the area of competition in the internal market and to reduce state aid levels, it would be "totally unacceptable" for the applicants to continue their current practices, which go in the opposite direction, insisted Mr Monti. Speeding up the work of aligning applicant states' competition rules to the Community acquis would also facilitate the accession negotiations, because the state of harmonisation of rules will determine the speed with which the negotiations on the competition policy chapter can be concluded.
Substantive negotiations on competition are planned for the second half of this year, under Belgian Presidency and the accelerated application of Community rules in the applicant countries would also have a positive impact on foreign investment in these countries. "At present, foreign investors are placed in a situation of economic and legal uncertainty in the applicant states, because they have no guarantee that the investment support measures and schemes now in place in these countries will still be in force following accession to the EU", noted Mr Monti.
In many areas, the applicants are in the process of adopting new anti-trust and state aid legislation, but their implementation leaves a lot to be desired in all these countries, "although the situation varies from one country to the next", acknowledged Mr Monti. The creation of administrative structures is also giving rise to enormous problems in all the applicant states. Considerable efforts will be needed to advance implementation of the anti-trust and state aid acquis. "This is the most important step the applicants will have to take if they want to move forward quickly in the accession negotiations", observed Mr Monti. Because, "should rapid progress be made in this area, the Commission could suggest [in the second half of this year] the provisional closing of the competition chapter of the negotiations with the most advanced candidates", said Mr Monti.