...hut EC study aims to cut diesel prices
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• National competition authorities and the European Commission have agreed that EC investigators should study the fuel market and the weak position of independent suppliers within the EU in a bid to cut forecourt prices.
At a meeting in Brussels.
Competition Commissioner Mario Monti and his national counterparts said: -Where independent operators have a significant presence [as is the case in France, the UK and Germany], motor fuel markets are more competitive than retail markets characterised by vertically integrated suppliers. Therefore, it is important that independent companies have a real possibility to enter the market,"
The meeting was staged as part of an EU initiative to combat rising fuel prices; it also includes the development of fuel pipelines from Russia to create an alternative source to the Middle East.
Participants backed a move by the EC to investigate the "competitive conditions of independent, non-integrated operators in various member states to learn more of the barriers these companies may face", including the ''behaviour of companies or administrative barriers".
The findings of such an investigation could be used as the basis of competition cases being brought against large fuel suppliers by the European Commission.