NETWORK OF EUROPEAN COMPETITION AUTHORITIES MARKS TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY IN ROME

The meeting of the European Competition Authorities, informal network that gathers together the European antitrust authorities, has marked the twentieth anniversary of its establishment in Rome.

The event, which was hosted by the Italian competition authority and the president Roberto Rustichelli welcomed heads of 25 European competition authorities, including representatives from Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, EFTA Surveillance Authority, Estonia, European Commission, France, Germany and Lithuania among others.

The meeting was structured in three sessions. In the first session, participants discussed the EU legislative proposal to regulate the digital economy, in particular they addressed the complementarity between the antitrust rules and the regulation of digital platforms brought by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the governance and institutional design of the new legislation with specific reference to the role that national competition authorities might perform in the enforcement of the DMA.

In the second session, participants addressed the relationship between competition policy and sustainability objectives and how competition policy can support the transition to a more sustainable economy.

Finally, the delegates debated how competition authorities with multiple competences can consistently pursue various institutional tasks assigned by the legislator while focusing, at the same time, on an effective enforcement of competition law.