The Commission will therefore examine whether the respective and combined shares of the parties in the turnover of their suppliers reach critical thresholds.

The fidelity rebate scheme has essentially precluded any private competitor from reaching the "critical mass" (estimated at an annual turnover of 100 million parcels) to successfully enter the German mail-order delivery market.

61. In view of these criticisms many respondents have suggested that Article 1(3) should be repealed and that the thresholds in Article 1(2) should be substantially lowered (As indicated above, the most common suggestion is that the combined world-wide turnover requirement should be lowered to EUR 2 billion, whereas the Community turnover requirement should be set at EUR 100 million for two parties.)

As the sole arbiter of proposed mergers and concentrations between companies which have an aggregate worldwide turnover in excess of ECU 5 billion and individual turnover of ECU 250 million in Europe, of at least two of the companies concerned, the European Commission invites governments and companies, before 31 March 1996, to a wide ranging debate centred, essentially, on the three following themes: - a reduction in the thresholds which give exclusive control to the Commission being ECU 2 billion for worldwide sales (in place of ECU 5 billion) and ECU 100 million (instead of ECU 250 million).; - should such a reduction not be achieved, exclusive control for the Commission for those mergers which fall between "the old and the new threshold ...[+++]s" and which have to be notified to several national competition authorities; this approach would save both time and money; - a series of options giving answer to the criticisms formulated, not only by the business world, but equally by certain Member States, as regards cooperative joint venture operations which do not fall under the rules of the Merger Regulation but under the "general" rules regarding competition policy (in particular Article 85 of the Treaty).