The Internationalisation of European Competition Policy

Abstract

In a world where not only goods and services, but also people, capital and ideas have adopted transnational characteristics, and where globalisation is the current buzz-word, the absence of international rules on private restrictive business practices has become a source of concern for governments and international organisations that are working to promote open markets. The reason for this is clear. Wherever transparent public barriers to trade are dismantled, there is a danger that opaque private restrictive practices will take their place. While the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition (DGIV) has long been active in seeking to ensure that this does not happen within the Single European Market (SEM), it has, since the early 1990s, begun to emphasise as one of its priorities the global context of European competition policy.