The Commission is committed to an effects-based enforcement of Article 102 TFEU, which fully takes into account the dynamic nature of competition and constitutes a workable basis for vigorous enforcement. On 27 March 2023, the Commission adopted a package of two initiatives, namely a Call for Ev...
The Commission’s developing decisional practice showcases the particular challenges raised by mergers in digital and technology-focused sectors. Thus far, foreclosure risks resulting from conglomerate and vertical effects have been the main focus with theories of harm relating to interoperabilit...
It is possible to use a relatively simple methodology relying on previous work from the OECD to estimate the direct customer savings generated by the Commission’s antitrust and merger enforcement. For the ten-year period from 2012 to 2021, the estimated total direct customer savings from all ant...
This special issue of our Competition Policy Brief occasional series includes selected original contributions prepared for the Student Challenge that was part of the Greening Competition conference. On 4 February, 2021 the Directorate-General for Competition hosted an on-line conference titled C...
Data on the five largest European countries’ last two decades show increasing average industry concentration, and an increasing share of high concentration industries. Aggregate profitability estimates also show an increasing trend. While imperfect market power proxies, the data overall are not ...
The EU is facing many fundamental challenges to become climate neutral and environmentally sustainable, while pursuing recovery and growth, and ensuring a transition that is fair and just. Since the launch of the European Green Deal in 2019, the EU has intensified its response to these challenge...
The Damages Directive was published in the Official Journal on 5 December 2014. EU countries need to implement it by 27 December 2016. The Directive makes it a lot easier for victims of antitrust violations to claim compensation, and fine-tunes the interplay between private damages claims and pu...
In the car sector certain segments have been struggling with structural overcapacity and dropping or stagnating sales volumes. Significant volumes of public support by Member States have been injected into the sector, and State aid control ensures that this is not at the expense of competition....
State aid modernisation: cuts red tape and simplifies the granting of State aid, which increases the efficiency of state aid policy ; provides incentives for Member States to allocate good aid to companies in a non-distortionary manner, contributing directly to promoting growth and jobs ; contri...
The rescue and restructuring guidelines allow for granting of State aid under strict conditions, ensuring that the aided company will become viable without continued state support. This helps to transform and modernise the European aviation sector, which needs strong and healthy airlines to meet...