Globalization and EU Competition Policy

This book explores how the EU’s competition policy has responded to and shaped globalization of the world economy in the last few decades. With focused contributions on state aid, merger policy, cartels and the international dimensions of competition policy, the contributors examine how the European Commission has dealt with major challenges arising from economic interdependence, the proliferation of national and regional competition regimes, and the financial and economic crisis.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.

Competition policy—encompassing cartels, monopolies, mergers and state aid—is a hallmark of the European Union (EU). In recent decades, the EU’s competition policy has evolved under pressures from globalization. The EU in turn has been a key actor driving the globalization of the world economy through its increasingly active competition policy. This volume identifies and explores the major transformations that EU competition policy has undergone in the last decade in response to various pressures related to globalization, in particular, economic interdependence, the proliferation of national and regional competition regimes, and the financial and economic crisis. The individual chapters, written by specialists of EU competition policy from both sides of the Atlantic and from the perspectives of political science, management and public policy, investigate how the EU has responded to these challenges in each area of competition policy, and demonstrate that it has, on balance, been quite successful in responding to them, with some exceptions in the areas of state aid and mergers.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.