From Industry Canada - Competition Bureau: Konrad von Finckenstein, Commissioner of Competition; Johanne d'Auray, Deputy Commissioner of Competition; Don Mercer, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Competition, Amendments.

78. Calls on the Commission President to ensure the independence of the ongoing and future investigations of Member States' tax ruling practices led by the Commissioner for Competition; insists that Parliament be kept informed of the broad progress of these investigations, with a view to ensuring that they are conducted in a transparent and independent manner; calls on the Commission to present a report on its findings as soon as possible; recalls the commitment made by the Commissioner for Competition to consider the wider implications for competition of aggressive tax avoidance practices undertaken by companies and encouraged by sta ...[+++]tes and to extend the investigation should this be deemed necessary once the facts have been collected;

78. Calls on the Commission President to ensure the independence of the ongoing and future investigations of Member States' tax ruling practices led by the Commissioner for Competition; insists that Parliament be kept informed of the broad progress of these investigations, with a view to ensuring that they are conducted in a transparent and independent manner; calls on the Commission to present a report on its findings as soon as possible; recalls the commitment made by the Commissioner for Competition to consider the wider implications for competition of aggressive tax avoidance practices undertaken by companies and encouraged by sta ...[+++]tes and to extend the investigation should this be deemed necessary once the facts have been collected;

Additionally, the CRIS Committee held six meetings in the form of open coordinators meetings with the Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia, the Commissioner on Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier, the Commissioner on Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud Algirdas Šemeta, the Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship Antonio Tajani, the Commissioner for Energy Günther Oettinger and the Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn.

At a meeting on 9 July 2008, the Commissioner for Competition informed the Minister of State Treasury of Poland that the draft restructuring plans for Gdynia Shipyard and Szczecin Shipyard that Poland submitted to the Commission on 26 June 2008 in the context of a State aid investigation, were not ensuring long-term viability of the two yards and did not comply with the conditions for the authorisation of State aid under the Community guidelines for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty .

There was a meeting recently between the Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia and my colleague Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition, to scrutinise the state of affairs in this regard.