Changing Competition Law in a Changing European Union

Abstract

Competition law is part of the economic constitutional set-up of the European Treaty. It has been incorporated in the treaty-texts since the inception of the European Economic Community and is one of the important building blocks of the internal market, the foundation on which the European integration project (still) rests. Certainly, it sometimes creates constitutional challenges for the European Union, but European competition law can now also be part of providing answers to current challenges besetting the European Union. These challenges result from global challenges, such as globalization, digitalization, and sustainability, to which also the European Union needs to respond. These are challenges also for European competition law and in answering, the European constitutional context is important. This makes the European competition law challenges constitutional challenges. This article aims to show that European competition law is entering a new period of change –different from its previous fundamental change led by economisation and modernisation– under the pressure of societal challenges and the current inadequacy of competition law to address them. To have a full grasp of that change, and how to more forward, I suggest a reconsideration of the place of European competition law in the EU’s constitution.