Unmasking a federal agency: the European Commission’s control of competition policy

Abstract

Provides an institutional insight into competition policy making in the European Union (EU). Focuses primarily on the core EU institution, namely the European Commission, and specifically the Directorate General for Competition (DGIV) which has assumed the stature of an autonomous agency and manages the first truly supranational EU policy. As its authority has grown the EU competition rules have impacted on the activities of all businesses operating within the single market. In short, the Commission operates as the world’s leading regional anti‐trust enforcement agency and as such it may serve as the ideal prototype for a larger international accord as pressure mounts for the establishment of some form of global competition rules. Accounts for the origins of policy and the evolution of DGIV, analyses the EU institutional setting, provides an assessment of policy and accentuates the inevitability of competition policy reform in the late 1990s.