Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, rapporteur. – Madam President, I would again like to welcome Commissioner Vestager to this Parliament.

First of all, let me thank all the shadow rapporteurs. We have done very good work together. This is my second time as rapporteur of the Annual Report on Competition Policy. The first time was with Commissioner Almunia in 2013. This may be the last competition report of this term. Next year we will have European elections again.

As you know, this is a non—binding report, but it sends a strong political message to the Commission. In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs this report was approved with 49 votes in favour and only five against. I hope we will have the same huge majority in plenary tomorrow.

I have to say that some of the competition problems are the same as five years ago, among them the Google antitrust case. In the Google case, five years seems an eternity to me. I say to the Commissioner that still hope that we can close some of the cases before the end of the Commission’s mandate.

In this report we strongly support the independence of the Commission and the national competition authorities. Their mission is to shape and enforce effectively EU competition rules for the benefit of all EU citizens. Sufficient financial and human resources are key to achieving this goal. An independent competition policy needs independent competition authorities. Political appointments tend to protect oligopolies and cost millions to European citizens.

In this report we call on the Commission to reallocate adequate financial and human resources to DG Competition, as we did last year. We also call for the modernisation of the Directorate’s electronic and informatic tools in order to cope with the increasing workload and technological progress.

Regarding the issue of data, we have all been shocked by the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal. Well, I am proud. We have been denouncing the utilisation and misuse of data for some years now. Paragraph 44 of this report, written well before the Facebook scandal, states that “big tech companies’ use of personal data is unprecedented. Consumers are often not aware or informed of the extent to which their data is being used, for example in profiling or targeted advertising”. The Commission was well aware of this. To avoid further such scandals in the EU, the new GDPR rules that are coming into force are good news in this respect.

Regarding the Google antitrust shopping case, in paragraph 42 we put the unbundling of Google back on the table as one of the options to restore equal treatment and non—discrimination in search results. We also invite Google’s CEO to a joint IMCO/ECON hearing in Parliament. We can sum up the Google case in a short tweet: inaction brings Google unbundling closer every day.

Commissioner Vestager, I have some questions for you. Would you have updates to give us today on the shopping antitrust case? In addition, what about the Android and AdSense cases. Finally, you were in the US last week. I hope you had interesting meetings. If you could talk to us about them, it would be very well received.

In paragraph 56, we welcome the Commission’s simplification of the rules for public investment in ports and airports. All major infrastructure should be based on a positive cost benefit analysis and long—term economic viability in order to avoid the future financing of ghost airports in Europe. We also raised the issue of airlines’ competition and the concerns with regard to Gulf carriers. We need financial transparency in order to confirm or dismiss alleged public subsidies which break the level playing field among European and third country airlines.

Finally, we also welcome the fact that, from now on, direct flights between Tokyo and Barcelona will be possible. We welcome the fact that the Spanish Government is ready to open up the bilateral agreement between Spain and Russia – which prevents there from being a Barcelona-Tokyo route – as announced by the Spanish Minister of Transport last February. Competition is the best remedy against transport centralism.

I will stop here. Once again, I thank all the rapporteurs for their contributions. I look forward to your comments and our exchange.