Quotes
Try to guess my answer to that question, however temptingly you pose it.
This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S.
They're very different cases than the one before the district and appellate courts in the U.S.; that concerns Windows' effect on the browser market, whereas our case has to do with possible abuse of a dominant position in the server market.
There is no government in Europe where ministers go through that kind of confirmation process, which in fact is modeled on the way the U.S. cabinet members are confirmed.
That statement was not addressed to the authors of political statements. I said that I deplore attempts to misinform the public and to /trigger/ political intervention. And there were such attempts.
That doesn't mean there was a right decision and a wrong decision. But, take a merger that was larger than this one, AOL Time Warner. There the European Commission authorized it well before the FTC did, and I would say with less heavy remedies.
Reference to the territory and total disregard for the nationality of the companies is of course the best guarantee that competition assessment remain just that and doesn't get affected by trade or other considerations.
Of course, that was made possible by the abandonment of the Time Warner EMI deal, which was equally a problem for the FTC.
Like other antitrust agencies we make our assessment of a merger or antitrust case based on its impact on our jurisdiction, and not on the nationality of the companies. This is exactly what the U.S. antitrust agencies, the Justice Department and the FTC, do.
It would not be, in my view, in the interest of business, which has great interest in having professional, and if at all possible convergent, and in any case non-politicized merger assessments on both sides of the Atlantic.
In anti-trust we moved to a more American, adopting more economics-based approach to our rules on vertical restraints.
I have the most profound respect for the Department of Justice and the FTC. We in Europe are a younger and I would say junior institution to the historical antitrust experience of the US.
I don't believe we're seeing the beginning of a divergence. We have seen a partial divergence on this case.
I am confident that as people gradually shift from emotion to cool analysis of the facts, there will be no damage to US-EU relations, and as far as the relations between US anti-trust agencies and the European Commission is concerned.
For a broader public opinion, I'm convinced these loud statements by political figures in the US about a non-US antitrust agency are not likely to enhance the inner belief that the anti-trust agencies there are independent - as, I repeat, I am convinced they are.
As to the question of elected or not elected, each member of the European Commission has been appointed jointly by the governments of the 15 member states, and undergone individual scrutiny and a vote of confidence from the European Parliament.
All I can say I would have considered it necessary for GE to reduce its control over GECAS. GE said that if GE's shareholding fell below 80%, then GECAS could no longer be consolidated into GE's accounts.
A number of very high-level public pronouncements from the US side had by that time already taken place.
A lot of the American press at the time was saying 'just watch what happens when Bertelsmann tries to buy EMI, that will be a moment of truth that will show the Commission's true colors.' Well, that deal never happened either.
'Tis human actions paint the chart of time.