Activities of Michel REIMON related to 2017/2191(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the Annual Report on Competition Policy PDF (504 KB) DOC (105 KB)
Amendments (20)
Amendment 21 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the efforts of the Commission to maintain regular contact with the members of Parliament’s competent committee; Asks the Commission to deliver more comprehensive feedback on the specific requests made in the European Parliament annual competition report;
Amendment 102 #
14. Reiterates that all market players should pay their fair share of tax; welcomes the Commission’s in-depth investigations into anti-competitive practices such as selective tax advantages and excess profit ruling systems; stresses that the reduction of tax fraud and tax avoidance is fundamental in order to consolidate sound public budgets; Underlines, therefore, the need to ensure broad access to information in order to trigger more investigations on suspicious cases;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Calls for the revision of State aid guidelines on taxation to cover cases of unfair competition going beyond tax rulings and transfer pricing;
Amendment 125 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. WStrongly welcomes the Commission decision taken against Luxembourg on the illegal tax benefits granted to Amazon (around EUR 250 million) as well as its previous landmark decisions on illegal selective tax advantages in Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands; calls on the Commission to claw back any illegal state in all comparable cases in order to guarantee equal treatment and restore a level playing field;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Stresses that the timely recovery of illegal aid is indispensable for an effective state aid regime, capable of enforcing fair competition in the single market; supports the relevant actions taken by the Commission in relation to the Ireland/Apple case;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 b (new)
Paragraph 15 b (new)
15b. Considers that fair competition within the internal market can be hampered by tax planning as, new entrants and SMEs doing business only in one country are penalised as compared to MNCs, which can shift profits or implement other forms of aggressive tax planning through a variety of decisions and instruments, available to them only; notes with concern that, the resulting lower tax liabilities leave the latter with a higher post-tax profit and create an uneven playing field with their competitors on the single market, which do not have recourse to aggressive tax planning and keep the connection between where they generate profit and their place of taxation;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 c (new)
Paragraph 15 c (new)
15c. Underlines the importance of the establishment of CCCTB, the public disclosure of tax rulings, the review of the VAT Directive, the obligation on large international companies to report publicly their turnover and profits on a ‘country- by-country’ basis, for preventing distortions of competition by aggressive tax planning and tax evasion;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 d (new)
Paragraph 15 d (new)
15d. Welcomes the investigations of the Commission on selective tax advantages in Madeira; calls on the Commission to investigate in tax advantages provided in special economic zones or other regionally limited tax advantages and to report its findings to the Parliament;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 e (new)
Paragraph 15 e (new)
15e. Asks the Commission to enter into negotiations with all states and territories having a strong access to the common market and lack effective state aid controls against unfair tax competition, including Switzerland;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 f (new)
Paragraph 15 f (new)
15f. Stresses the need to abide to the BRRD legal requirement that state aid to the banking sector should as a general rule trigger the resolution of the beneficiaries;
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Underlines that the bailout of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza was based on the assumption that these were systemic banks in their region, and calls on the Commission to develop this line of thinking in compliance with EU rules and the bail-in principle; points out that in the case of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, albeit the SRB had concluded that resolution was not warranted in the public interest, the Commission indicated that it approved state aid on the basis that it mitigates economic disturbance at regional level, thus leading to the application of two different definitions of "public interest" one at the EU and one at regional level; stresses that such interpretation of state aid rules entrenches the limits set by Article 107 paragraph 3b TFEU, circumvents the rules set by the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, violates the spirit and letter of the banking communication which was meant for preserving financial stability and ignores that the purpose of the banking communication existed in a time when mechanisms allowing for the resolution of credit institutions without threatening financial stability were absent; urges, therefore, the Commission to reconsider its interpretation of the relevant state aid rules in a way consistent with the BRRD resolution framework and to revise its 2013 Banking Communication accordingly, including the area of “liquidation aid”;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Regrets the lack of transparency on state aid decisions; requests the Commission to proceed to their timely publication;
Amendment 160 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Recalls its request to the Commission to examine whether the banking sector has benefited since the beginning of the crisis from implicit subsidies and state aid by means of the provision of unconventional liquidity support;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23 a (new)
Paragraph 23 a (new)
23a. Encourages the Commission’s efforts to focus on the broader issue of competition enforcement in digital markets; strongly welcomes its coordinated actions on forcing “tech giants” to pay their “fair share” of tax;
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23 b (new)
Paragraph 23 b (new)
23b. Is concerned over the potential misuse of the large market share of online trading platforms; fears that a lack of competition can lead to excessively high fees harming small and medium sized enterprises and touristic regions; calls, in this respect, for a special investigation in trading platforms, considering the degree of concentration in the different submarkets and potentially abusive ranking criteria; asks in this respect to look into dominant hotel online booking platforms, in particular Booking.com;
Amendment 233 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27 a (new)
Paragraph 27 a (new)
27a. Stresses that environmental externalities produced by the air transport industry should be carefully considered in the shaping of the EU aviation policy and legislation as well in the application of EU competition rules, in particular in the framework of the “advantage” and “compatibility” analysis of state aid measures; underlines in this respect that by internalising the “polluter pays principle”, the EU and Member States should achieve fair competition within the air transport sector as well as in the entire inter-model transport sector;
Amendment 271 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
32. Calls on the Commission to analyse how lack of competition in certain parts of the food supply chain could be affecting prices and, the viability of many agricultural producers, and the choice of adapted varieties to agro-ecological conditions;
Amendment 275 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 a (new)
Paragraph 32 a (new)
32a. Welcomes the in-depth investigation by the Commission on the Monsanto-Bayer merger; is deeply alarmed by the fact that if the Monsanto- Bayer merger is approved, three companies (Chem China-Syngenta, Du Pont-Dow and Bayer-Monsanto) will own and sell up to 60 percent of world’s patented seeds and 64% of world’s pesticides/herbicides; points out that such level of concentration will undoubtedly lead to price rises, the increase of the technological and economic dependence of farmers on a few global integrated one- stop shop platforms, limited seed diversity, the direction of innovation activity away from the adoption of a production model that is respectful of the environment and biodiversity and finally to less innovation, due to reduced competition; asks, therefore, the Commission to carefully consider the context that several mergers are taking place simultaneously in the sector when looking at the level of concentration and the competitive effects of the merger on the various markets affected;
Amendment 287 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 b (new)
Paragraph 32 b (new)
32b. Strongly urges the Commission to assess how mergers in the agricultural sector could lead to a significant impediment of effective competition not by employing a narrowly designed test that merely focuses on the effects of a merger on prices and output but by assessing the full social costs of such mergers taking into account their broader impact on environmental protection, as it is obliged to do by virtue of Article 11 TFEU, and the international obligations on biodiversity to which EU Member States and the EU should abide to;
Amendment 289 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 c (new)
Paragraph 32 c (new)