Monti, Mario --- "Foreword" [2006] ELECD 85; in IIzkovitz, Fabienne; Meiklejohn, Roderick (eds), "European Merger Control" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: European Merger Control

Editor(s): IIzkovitz, Fabienne; Meiklejohn, Roderick

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424916

Section Title: Foreword

Author(s): Monti, Mario

Number of pages: 3

Extract:

Foreword
Vigorous competition in the European internal market is the best guaran-
tee of the efficiency of the economy in serving consumers' needs, innova-
tion and the competitiveness of European firms in world markets. A large
number of empirical studies confirm that companies that are exposed to
effective competition in their home markets not only serve their domestic
consumers better but also compete more successfully in foreign markets
than firms that face little or no competition at home. An effective competi-
tion policy is therefore just as important today, in a context of rapid glo-
balisation, as it ever was.
During my period of office as the member of the European Commission
responsible for competition policy, I launched a programme of reforms
designed to equip EU competition policy with the tools needed to face the
challenges of enlargement and globalisation, while making greater use of
the insights derived from theoretical and empirical economics. Prominent
amongst these reforms was a thorough revision of the merger regulation,
covering all aspects of merger control. One of the major changes intro-
duced in the new regulation was the inclusion of a clear statement that sub-
stantiated and likely efficiences should be taken into account if they
counteract the effects on competition, in particular the potential harm to
consumers, that the merger might otherwise cause. Soon after the adoption
of the new regulation in January 2004, the Commission issued guidelines,
explaining how it would apply the regulation to horizontal mergers, that is,
mergers between companies ...