Guidance allowing companies to collaborate with rivals on investment. A regime to police potentially worrying mergers after they are approved, rather than before. New principles to vet corporate tie-ups on an EU-wide basis, instead of reviewing market power at the national level. Of all the 400 pages of Mario Draghi’s report on European competitiveness, the recommendations directed at the EU’s antitrust division — long seen as the vanguard of Brussels regulation — are some of the most radical.
” Draghi argues that his goals can be achieved without rewriting the EU’s core competition goals, merger control regulations, or indeed state aid rules. The key reform would be changing the commission’s own in-house guidelines for how those rules are enforced so they are “fit for purpose”. One example would be to make innovation — and the development of new technologies — a more important factor in assessing whether high concentrations of market power can be tolerated.