- “Second is guidance. Guidance is mainly given through cases and through case law of the Court of Justice. The court has rendered a first judgment in the Nuctech investigation, where the court gave us useful guidance on our inspection powers, and in our cases, we try to publish our decisions as quickly as possible. Of course, we need to agree with the parties on what is confidential or not, and we are therefore happy that we were able to already publish a provisional. And that's already a long document, a provisional copy of our decision in the Emirati telecom case. And I understand that both the legal and business community We're happy that they could see the details of that case. Apart from cases and case law, obviously we also committed to give guidance through guidelines on key concepts in the foreign subsidy regulation. We had a public consultation on the basis of a draft of those guidelines. The public consultation closed two weeks ago. We received 66 zero replies from a variety of stakeholders. We are currently going through those and we will be able to publish the guidelines as promised at the beginning of next year. With that, Mr. Chair, I complete the overview of the enforcement both by DG grow and DG comp.”
EU policy on screening foreign investment in strategic sectors and critical infrastructure · EU Competition policy · EU policy on social & environmental impact of foreign investments
- “We have two years of experience now, and it is exactly that two years of experience that led us to facilitate the reporting of investment funds. We have not opened an in-depth investigation against an investment fund in those two years. It's because of the characterization of those transactions, often with passive investors in an investment fund. So if we can. And therefore the plea for stakeholders to give us suggestions for further simplification is a sincere one, because with stable resources, if we can simplify the reporting and hence also the assessment on our side While continue doing a serious job. And let's not be mistaken. Then we open resources for the ex-officio work. What also helps, and I refer to the suggestion that Mr. Van Brempt made, is intelligence sharing within the Commission. I use intelligence sharing rather than data sharing because the data that we receive in the context of our investigations, we cannot share. We are getting information in a given context. Companies will not allow us to share that with colleagues in other DGS for other purposes. And that's that's a prohibition which is also laid down in the FSR. But intelligence sharing, we should of course do. And we are doing, I can assure you, and I agree, that if we can step up intelligence sharing, that would foster also the enforcement of the FSR. I hope that with that, questions have been replied. Thank you.”
EU policy on screening foreign investment in strategic sectors and critical infrastructure · EU Competition policy
- “We have to be conscious of the fact that our investigations can be disruptive to an industry. So we should not lightly open ex officio cases. We need, therefore, to have credible information that shows that there may be distortive foreign subsidies. What matters is the type of subsidization. There are some subsidies that are more harmful than others. Don't forget that we also give subsidies. So if we are confronted with subsidization that is identical to what we do in the European Union, one should not start an ex-officio case. It also depends on the sector we are looking into. If there is an industry that is important for the strategic autonomy of the European Union, it has a higher likelihood of opening an ex-officio case. And finally, we need to look at the impact. I'm aware that there are foreign subsidies that are distortive. In the local and having a local effect. I think that with the resources we have, we should focus our attention on those subsidies that have a broader distortive effect. So type of subsidization sector affected and effect in the European Union that are broadly the criteria that we are using, together with the credibility of the information in order to open or not an ex-officio case if the resources remain stable. Unstable. The only thing we can do in order to have more ex-officio cases is to be sure that on notifications of concentrations we are swifter, not more lenient, but swifter.”
EU policy on screening foreign investment in strategic sectors and critical infrastructure · EU Competition policy · EU policy on social & environmental impact of foreign investments
- “Apart from the cases that we are looking into, we have of course, also been focusing on two of the most recurrent concerns that we hear from stakeholders, namely, a reduction of the administrative burden and a call for guidance when it comes to the reduction of administrative burden. We have still last week published on our website, where we are Having an overview of the Q and A's through one of those Q and A's, we have simplified the reporting of concentrations by investment funds. Investment funds are still a big group of the concentration cases that we are looking into, and their reporting has now been reduced. That is a significant simplification for that group. We are open to simplify further where that is possible, of course. While maintaining the duties that we got from you through the legislation, which is to check that there are no foreign subsidies distorting the internal market, I think that the ongoing public consultation that will lead to the review report that we will present to you in mid next year, that public consultation is an ideal opportunity for stakeholders to give us further Are the suggestions of simplifying while maintaining our enforcement obligations.”
EU Competition policy · Simplification measures (political compass)
- “Thanks, Bonnie. Um, good morning, chair. Honourable members for DG comp. The enforcement record looks a bit different than what we have on the side of the colleagues from DG grow next to our ex-officio investigations. Um, in particular the ones regarding security scanners and wind energy. We have mainly been reviewing notifications of concentrations in the past two years. We have received around 200 of those notifications at this table. Trend of eight per month. Um, we have not used the possibility to call in transactions that are below threshold so far. Of the roughly 200 concentrations that we have been looking into, we have opened an in-depth investigation in two cases. Two cases where we had indications of distorted foreign subsidies. Last year, we opened an in-depth investigation in the case of the acquisition by the Emirates Telecommunications Group, acquiring major parts of the PPF telecom group. And as you may know, we have closed that investigation with a decision accepting commitments offered by the Emirati commitments that were replying to the concerns that we had raised. The second case where we opened an in-depth investigation was only last summer, Where we have opened an investigation. A further investigation into the acquisition by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company of Covestro. Also there we had indications of distorted foreign subsidies and hence we opened an in-depth investigation, which is still ongoing.”
EU policy on screening foreign investment in strategic sectors and critical infrastructure · EU Competition policy · EU policy on social & environmental impact of foreign investments
- “Thanks, Bonnie. And thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Van Brempt, Mr. Caspary, for your support and and your questions. Um, Mr. Chair, if you're asking an administration whether they have sufficient resources, I think you know the answer. Um, indeed. We we have created the directorate, um, on foreign subsidies. So we are 40 plus four zero plus colleagues looking into this. More resources would particularly help us on doing more ex-officio cases. The stream of notifications of concentrations is, as I mentioned, constant around eight per month, and we deal with each one of them diligently. Opening an in-depth investigation in a concentration case is not linked to the resources we have. It is linked to the merits of the file. So if anything, the lack of resources or as I mentioned, if you have more resources, you do you would work, you would not open more in-depth investigations. It's not that we suddenly find some subsidies to be more distortive than previously, but it would move into the ex-officio, which is also important, obviously. Now for the ex-officio, you were asking what are our criteria to open cases? Resources is one of them. Besides that, we need to have some credible information about Distortive foreign subsidies we get lots of allegations. But if those allegations are not founded either by the informant or when we do the when we do our desk research, then I believe it is a bad habit to open an investigation.”
EU policy on screening foreign investment in strategic sectors and critical infrastructure · EU Competition policy · EU policy on social & environmental impact of foreign investments