Brussels, 10/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Mario Monti will formally present reform proposals for the Merger Regulation on Wednesday (Regulation 4064/89). The stakes are even greater for the European Commission than for the Court of First Instance as the latter contributed to feeding the criticism about the outdated mode of the rules and censured the Commission's decisions on three occasions within a short period of time. Mr Monti, who has been preparing the eleven-year-old Regulation for the past year, acknowledged the need for reform and has learned some of the lessons imposed upon it by the European Court is currently fine-tuning the proposals. The essential basis to the reform, which intends to improve the system without fundamentally changing it has been explained by Mr Monti on several occasions: creation of an Head economist position supported by several assistants; the setting up of an independent experts group in charge of evaluating the reasons for an assessment (in phase 2); strengthening defence rights with access to information for the merger parties and more flexibility in the deadlines. The College is expected to confirm the proposal on 11 December. it will then be put before the Council in autumn 2003 for application at the beginning of 2004 (see EUROPE 8 November p 9).