European Union News - Internal Market

Prior notification of a concentration procedure between Rabobank and polish bank Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowe, was published on January 16th in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The Official Journal of the European Union has published on January, 15th 2009 the Communication from the Commission on “The recapitalisation of financial institutions in the current financial crisis: limitation of aid to the minimum necessary and safeguards against undue distortions of competition”, which presents some guidelines on the new regimes for recapitalization and opens the possibility to adapt the existing ones.

The Council adopted on January, 12th 2009, the common positions and the statements on the package of legislative measures concerning the internal energy market, aiming to supplement the existing rules to ensure that the internal market operates smoothly for all consumers and to enable the EU to achieve a more secure, competitive and sustainable energy supply.

The Official Journal of the European Union, OJEU, has published on January 15th, the Decision adopted by the Commission on December 22nd 2008 on the request from the United Kingdom to accept Regulation (EC) Nº 593/2008 of the European Parliament and the Council on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I).

Council Directive 2008/118/EC concerning the general arrangements for excise duty has been published in the OJEU on January, 14th 2009. This new text, whose main objective is to ensure common arrangements in relation to certain aspects of excise duty, replaces Council Directive 92/12/EEC of February, 25th 1992 on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products. As the previous text  has been substantially amended several times, it turned to be necessary to replace it in the interests of clarity.

The Official Journal of the European Union published on its C Series on January, 13th, 2009, a prior notification of concentration between the companies OP Trust, Deutsche Bank London, Lloyds TSB Bank, BNP Paribas and Porterbrook Leasing. Interested third parties are invited to submit their possible observations by January 24th.

The Commission has set up, by Decision 2009/17/CE, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the Committee of Experts on Posting of Workers. This Committee will engage with the public bodies responsible for control, such as labour inspectorates. It will also, at appropriate levels and in accordance with national law and practice, formally and regularly involve the social partners, in particular representatives of the social partners in sectors with a high incidence of recourse to posted workers.

The European Commission has decided to open formal proceedings with respect to Standard & Poor's (S&P) behaviour towards end users of International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs), for possible breaches of the EC Treaty's rules on abuse of a dominant market position. The Commission believes that S&P may abuse its monopoly position as the US national numbering agency by forcing financial institutions (such as banks and investment funds) to pay licensing fees for the use of US ISIN codes in their own databases.

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the two Spanish low-cost airlines Vueling and Clickair by the Spanish flag-carrier Iberia on condition that commitments to safeguard competition and passenger choice are implemented. The Spanish competition authority submitted a request for the concentration to be referred to them for consideration but subsequently withdrew their request.

EU reforms in the postal sector are well on track, but some Member States need to speed up their transition towards full market opening and to remove remaining barriers to competition. These are the conclusions of the European Commission's latest periodical application report on the EU postal sector. The creation of an Internal Postal Market is included in the Lisbon Strategy as a crucial element of the EU's single market policy.

According to the Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken by the Community concerning the proposal to amend the customs Convention on the International Transport of goods under cover of TIR carnets (TIR Convention 1975), as published on December 19th, the Commission supports the proposal to change the amount which may be claimed for each TIR Carnet from 50,000USD to 60,000€.

In its conclusions of 12 December the European Council invited the Commission to adopt a number of measures in response to the financial crisis. One of these measures concerns the use of accelerated procedures in public procurement.