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European Commission merger control: combining competition and the creation of larger European firms

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  • Thatcher, Mark

Abstract

The article examines the European Commission's use of its legal powers over mergers. It discusses and tests two views. One is that the 'neoliberal' Commission has ended previous industrial policies of aiding 'national champion' firms to grow through mergers and instead pursues a 'merger-constraining' policy of vigorously using its legal powers to block mergers. The other is that the Commission follows an 'integrationist policy' of seeking the development of larger European firms to deepen economic integration. It examines Commission decisions under the 1989 EC Merger Regulation between 1990 and 2009. It selects three major sectors that are 'likely' for the 'merger-constraining' view - banking, energy and telecommunications - and analyses a dataset of almost 600 Commission decisions and then individual merger cases. It finds that the Commission has approved almost all mergers, including by former 'national champion' firms. There have been only two prohibitions over 20 years in the three sectors and the outcome has been the creation of larger European firms through mergers. It explains how the Commission can pursue an integrationist policy through the application of competition processes and criteria. The wider implication is that the Commission can combine competition policy with achieving the 'industrial policy' aim of aiding the development of larger European firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Thatcher, Mark, 2014. "European Commission merger control: combining competition and the creation of larger European firms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 54743, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:54743
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/54743/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Eleanor Morgan, 2001. "A Decade of EC Merger Control," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 451-473.
    2. Oliver Budzinski, 2008. "Monoculture versus diversity in competition economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(2), pages 295-324, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Billows & Sebastian Kohl & Fabien Tarissan, 2021. "Bureaucrats or Ideologues? EU Merger Control as Market‐centred Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 762-781, July.
    2. Dmytro Osiichuk & Paweł Wnuczak, 2023. "Do Corporate Consolidations Affect the Competitive Positioning of Non-Financial Firms in China?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    3. Bulfone, Fabio, 2020. "The political economy of industrial policy in the European Union," MPIfG Discussion Paper 20/12, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Marco Schito, 2021. "A Sectoral Approach to the Politics of State Aid in the European Union: an Analysis of the European Automotive Industry," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-31, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    European Commission; mergers; national champions; neoliberalism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F00 - International Economics - - General - - - General

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