If DG COMP had not applied the competition rules to banks in Europe, we would have seen consumer harm as banks took advantage of the 'free ride’. The special situation of banks cannot alter the competition regime.
After the G20, an international dialogue has emerged and the European Commission is pushing for convergence amongst the world's competition authorities.
Ms Kroes started by saying “that communicating the benefits of competition and the need for enforcement policy to make sure it can flourish are vital.”
She presented two key ideas to deal with Competition policy:
· Competition helps people to stretch their rupees further. It is a very inclusive form of economy policy. It means more food and consumer goods for families. It means a small business has a better chance to expand, through new opportunities and a cheaper supply chain.
· Competition brings more change and uncertainty. This fact makes communication more important; because the change and uncertainty will happen anyway. If you don't communicate the benefits of competition, you are left only with fear and dislike of competition.
She talked about her experience as European Commissioner for competition and the highlighted that the progress in the internal market has been done in two main fronts:
1. a stronger focus on the cases that affect consumers the most and
2. Greater use of economic analysis in DG COMP decisions.
Speaking about banks, she said that “if we had not applied the competition rules to banks in Europe, we would be starting to see consumer harm as banks took advantage of the 'free ride.' Instead we decided to work hard to retain our level playing field. I think there is now a consensus in Europe that one can take into account the special circumstances of banks without fundamentally altering the normal competition regime”.
Full speech
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