Promoting Competition: European Union and the Global Competition Order

Abstract

Global developments such as economic interdependence and the proliferation of national and regional competition regimes have created a complex international competition policy environment. The European Commission’s DG Competition has responded to these developments by making the international dimension of competition policy a priority since the late 1980s. It advocated for the establishment of a binding multilateral competition framework at the WTO, pursued bilateral cooperation agreements, extraterritorially applied its competition rules, and tried to export its competition policy model to its neighbors. This paper examines DG Competition’s objectives and strategies in internationalizing the EU’s competition policy, and evaluates the success of these strategies in furthering the EU’s goals in this area. The findings suggest that among all of the strategies it has tried, the DG has had most success with exporting the EU’s competition regime to other countries; however, this strategy may have reached its limits, and needs to be supplemented by multilateral efforts.

Key Words:

• competition policy
• EU external relations
• DG Competition
• international cooperation
• antitrust

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michael Blauberger, Kenneth P. Thomas and Eleanor J. Morgan for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. Cited in Devuyst (2000, 134).

2. For an evaluation of the Commission’s strategies in internationalizing state aid control, see Blauberger and Kramer (2010).