Unlike the grilling of Nellie Kroes -  his predecessor as competition commissioner, who was criticised for being too close to the major companies from which she hailed - Joaquin Almunia was not given a rough ride by MEPs from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on 12 January. The outgoing economic and monetary affairs commissioner confirmed his competence and knowledge of the dossiers and insisted upon the desire not to leave Parliament on the sidelines.

“You are like a good wine, which improves with age,” said ALDE MEP Ramon Tremossa. In his opening speech, the commissioner-designate immediately outlined his vision of a competition policy, which “is not an objective in itself”. “It is an essential tool for achieving our objectives [...] for the competitiveness of the EU in the world,” he declared, thus stressing the new direction assumed by the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, which no longer mentions competition among the aims of the Union. Managing the exit from the crisis, with its section on the withdrawal of state aid temporarily granted to the banking sector, was at the heart of the questioning by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, as well as the possible revision of fines for breaching competition rules.

ENDORSED FIRMNESS

In these two dossiers, the Spanish commissioner-designate was very firm. In response to a question by José Manuel Garcia-Margallo (EPP, Spain) on his strategy to ensure that banks are not encouraged to repeat their careless practices, relying on public “rescue” policies, Almunia replied that banks would be bound to implement a reorganisation and that the EU should guarantee a harmonisation of practices with regard to subsidies in order to create equitable conditions. Moreover, he assured MEPs that he would very closely follow the use of public money by banks in order to verify that public aid would not serve to pay bankers’ bonuses.

He was just as firm with regard to the calling into question of fines. This is “a deterrence that must be maintained at the necessary level,” retorted the Spanish economist, maintaining that “fines have a coherent level with this desire for deterrence” and recalling that there were only three cases involving the highest possible fine of 10% of the turnover of the company concerned. He thus intends to continue in a manner consistent to Kroes.

He affirmed to Gianni Pittella (S&D, Italy) that a project aimed at equipping the Commission with the powers of administrative or penal sanctions, in addition to financial sanctions, was not on the agenda as it would not tally with the current competition model. Furthermore, he insisted upon the fact that these fines should be transferred to the EU budget and that there should be no direct redistribution to a member state in particular, the legislation being what it is.

He also showed proof of self-assurance when titillated on his guarantees of independence. Conservative MEP Eniko Gyori (Hungary) questioned him on possible Hungarian pressure to which he may have been subjected in 2006 in order to allow the Socialist government in place to obtain an extension to reduce public deficit and thus win the elections. Defending his adherence to honest ideas, he assured her that he had never given in to such pressure.

CAUTION REQUIRED

The candidate commissioner showed himself to be more cautious with regard to the deadline for the expected disengagement in the banking sector. “It would be irresponsible to say when this temporary aid scheme will end.” If the optimistic forecasts prove well-founded, the end of the year could be envisageable but uncertainties remain.

There is also caution in terms of the fiscal competition introduced by certain member states. Almunia believes that fiscal advantages should not be used as a competition tool, but recalls that member states maintain their sovereignty in this area. Furthermore, it is also with judgement that he will examine, in co-decision with Parliament, the legislative aspect making it possible to facilitate collective recourse to compensation from companies having abused their market position. This type of procedure, which is rare in Europe, would offer compensation to victims and deter these unscrupulous companies. But he also specified that, above all, it was necessary not to add to the legislative confusion and to avoid the constant abuse noted across the Atlantic with ‘class actions’.

OPENING ETHOS

On several occasions, he assured Parliament of his desire to cooperate with it and that he would take great care to “do better than the best of commissioners” in the matter. He also underlined the need to explain to European citizens the crucial challenges of competition policy, which serves competitiveness, jobs in Europe and thus their future. He said he was prepared to come to the area and into the hemicycle as many times as he is invited to, as was the case in his role in economic and monetary affairs.

At the end of the day, he performed well and declared at the close of the hearing that he had not expected such taxing questions. There is one drawback, however: he was not very convincing on the point relating to relocations, which were in some way favoured by state aid. One MEP cited the case of Dell, which closed a plant in Ireland and was able to benefit from aid, confirmed by the Commission, for subsequently opening one in Poland. “There was no link between these two decisions by Dell,” Almunia replied, adding that support measures had been set up by the compensation fund to help workers affected by these company transfers.