The Commission particularly welcomes the importance given by the European Parliament to the staffing needs of the Competition Directorate General as it faces a growing workload in the current economic crisis.

In recent months, in addition to the preparation of these documents, many measures relating to the staff and internal organisation of the Competition Directorate General have been adopted, in particular the introduction of a new figure – the chief competition economist – and processes such as the peerreviewpanel to ensure greater clarity of control during analysis.

It subsequently became known that the Competition Directorate-General had prepared two contradictory drafts on the case.

In 1972, he joined as an official with the Commission in the Competition Directorate-General (D-G).

The Commission has assured us that this will not happen and has referred to a network's being set up, consisting of the Competition Directorate-General and the national competition authorities.

It is about creating a special unit or task force in the Competition Directorate-General whose task it will be to ensure, and monitor the fact, that the competition rules are applied equally in all the Member States.

Before 1992, the competition directorate-general of the Commission was submerged by literally hundreds of notifications of agreements in the insurance field, many of which raised similar issues and were eligible for an exemption under Article 81(3) of the Treaty.

In February 2012, the European Commission, Competition Directorate-General, sent Motorola notice that the Commission received a complaint by Apple on the enforcement of Motorola's standards-essential patents against Apple, allegedly in breach of Motorola's FRAND commitments.

Nor do I want to see the Competition Directorate-General's role in competition policy weakened. I want to support Commissioner Monti and all the other forces for good in their view that, in the future too, competition policy should remain precisely that, with no interference from other policy areas, such as industrial policy.

The Commission's spokesman has stated that the official was consulted by the Competition Directorate-General in connection with the investigation. He said that this did not pose a problem, as the person concerned had given assurances in a letter that he would not deal, at Microsoft, with matters being investigated by the Commission.