An EU competition policy for the 21st Century

With the European Union’s ‘statements of objection’ against corporate giants Google and Gazprom in  the headlines, Margrethe Vestager, the EU Commissioner for Competition, spoke to Friends of Europe about her role as enforcing EU competition law.

Big companies should be congratulated for their success and their role in job creation, Vestager said, but fairness to the customer shall always be the Commissioner’s priority. Deals and mergers that lead to less choice, higher prices and barriers to innovation are damaging to the citizen, and shall be challenged by the EU on the basis of facts and the law, not political opinion. Vestager said her focus would be on creating the Energy Union and a digital European single market in a way that is open, transparent and fair.

Globalisation is having a bigger impact resulting in more mergers and creating more opportunities to discuss competition multilaterally and come to a common understanding of competition between the many jurisdictions around the world.