Competition policy is an integral and prominent part of economic
policy-making in the European Union. The EU Treaty prescribes its member
states to conduct economic policy 'in accordance with the principle of
an open market economy with free competition'. More precisely, the goal
of EU competition policy is "to defend and develop effective competition
in the common market" (European Commission, 2000: 7). Under its
Commissioners van Miert, Monti and, most - cently, Kroes the EU
Commission has stepped up its effort to pursue and achieve the
aforementioned goal. A number of so-called hard-core cartels, such as
the - torious "vitamin cartel" led by Roche, have been detected, tried
in violation of Art. 81 of the Maastricht Accord and punished with
severe fines. Also Microsoft was hit hard by the strong hand of the
Commission having been severely fined for - ploiting a dominant market
position. Economic analysis has been playing an increasingly significant
role in the Commission's examination of competition law cases. This
holds true in particular for merger control. Here, however, the
Commission has had to accept some poi- ant defeats in court, such as the
Court's reversals of Airtours-First Choice or GE- Honeywell. Among other
things, the European Court of Justice found the e- nomic analysis as
conducted by the EU's Directorate General for Competition to be flawed
and the conclusions drawn not to be convincing. These rejections by the
courts have stirred up the scholarly debate on the conceptual
foundations of Eu- pean competition policy.
