Brussels, 04/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Mario Monti, responsible for competition, is to present late Tuesday afternoon the proposal of Regulation concerning automobile distribution, that the European Commission had adopted shortly before. The project is to replace the current system, on 1 October 2002. We recall that the present system provides for block exemption in favour of the automobile sector, allowing makers and distributors to be exempted from the European competition rules. The main question was that of knowing whether it was appropriate to renew exemption or, on the contrary, subject the automobile sector to the same rules as the other sectors, or again adopt an intermediary regime, which will probably be the case. Considerable contradictory pressure has been exerted over several months, with manufacturers, dealers and authorised repairers pushing for the current system to be renewed as it works well, they say. Independent repairers and garages as well as the BEUC recommend, on the other hand, complete revision of the system which, they say, is detrimental to consumers' interests as prices are kept artificially high. The spokesperson for Commissioner Monti, Michael Tscherny, pointed out that the project was amended in order to take account of the criticism made by several Commissioners. He recalled on the same occasion the procedure to which the project is subject, until its definitive adoption. The draft regulation that the Commission will adopt tomorrow will be forwarded to the Member States, to Parliament and, before submission, to the opinion of the relevant advisory committee. This process will take about one month, and at the end of February early March, the project will be published in the Official Journal. It will then be the subject of "external" consultation of around one month in the circles concerned, and their opinions will be collected by the Commission until end April. The text, possibly recast on the basis of these comments, will then return to the table of the advisory committee. The final regulation will then be adopted, probably in July, by the European Commission.