Brussels, 09/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The French daily Le Monde published on 8 November a response from Competition Commissioner Mario Monti, who plans to clarify validity of the European Commission's decisions concerning recent merger operations. The successive vetoes to the concentration between the French companies Schneider and Legrand as well as the acquisition of Sidel (France) by Tetra-Laval (Switzerland) caused a polemic, in France, about the way Mr Monti's services carried out appraisal of the dossiers. Mr Monti considers above all that the Commission's decisions were presented to the public in a "biased way" that made one forget the "countless approvals" given to other French companies. Welcoming the "vitality" of the large French companies, Mr Monti recognises the ability of French business leaders to cooperate effectively with the Commission "even in cases which were problematical". He does remark, however, that it was pointless to make any political influence intervene as it is our duty, he said, to be strictly insensitive to this. He also responded to the accusation that, in some cases, the Commission adopts a somewhat narrow vision of economic reality. Mr Monti considers the debate is "welcome" as long as it is based on sound arguments. Finally, he refutes the accusation that the Commission automatically bans all mergers between companies from one and the same Member State, and gives the example of TotalFina/Elf whose merger was authorised through certain concessions. Given the "particularly delicate exercise" of identifying remedies for competition problems, Mr Monti invites companies to fully cooperate with the Commission, "without waiting until the last weeks of the procedure". If the Commission makes a mistake ("and the Commission cannot be entirely free of mistakes", he admits), the jurisdictional control by the Court of Justice in Luxembourg allows the damage to be repaired with the cancellation of any decision taken by the European Executive. We recall that Le Monde had published in its columns a virulent response by Schneider President Henri Lachmann, who, after the European veto on the merger of his company with Legrand, had declared: "We have been ill-treated (…). The procedure is not transparent and is like a denial of justice. It is the same body that not only carries out the investigation, but also examines the remedies and takes a decision". He added moreover that "the Commission refuses the appearance of large groups and even rejects the idea of apprehending Europe to give preference to national markets".