6. Welcomes the preference of the Commission for putting strong emphasis on innovation, competitiveness, growth and jobs by making subheading 1a – where the key policies promoting positive developments in those fields are concentrated – the most highly prioritised area in its draft budget;

One of the challenges of my role is to bring together what is happening on the ground, to make it more coherent and make it work more effectively.

4. Recalls that individual consumers but also small businesses, especially those who have suffered dispersed and relatively low-value damage, are often deterred from bringing individual actions for damages by the costs, delays, uncertainties, risks and burdens involved; stresses, in this context, that collective redress, which allows the aggregation of individual actions for damages for breaches of the EC competition rules and enhances victims' ability to obtain access to justice, is an important deterrent; welcomes, in this respect, the Commission's proposals that mechanisms be set up to improve collective redress while avoiding exces ...[+++]sive litigation;

4. Recalls that individual consumers but also small businesses, especially those who have suffered dispersed and relatively low-value damage, are often deterred from bringing individual actions for damages by the costs, delays, uncertainties, risks and burdens involved; stresses, in this context, that collective redress, which allows the aggregation of individual actions for damages for breaches of the EC competition rules and enhances victims' ability to obtain access to justice, is an important deterrent; welcomes, in this respect, the Commission's proposals that mechanisms be set up to improve collective redress while avoiding exces ...[+++]sive litigation;

19. Takes the view, concerning governance, that the entry into force of the new treaty will strengthen the Commission's responsibilities, making it necessary to prioritise a single vision to unite the actions of the Commission, the ESA, the Member States and other institutions, while respecting differing areas of responsibility in order to optimise commitment in a technological area which is of vital importance for Europe's competitiveness;

In some cases, this may be achieved by the clustering of actions dedicated to different aspects of one and the same objective.