Competition Policy and Market Regulation
Competition Policy is one of the pillars of the internal market and a centrepiece of the ‘Economic Constitution’ of the European Union.
It is one of the Union’s success stories because it has increasingly focused upon ensuring that consumers benefit from competitive markets, in two ways.
First by targeting cartels, restrictive practices, and abuses of market power by firms operating on the European market, and secondly by monitoring market regulation by Member States to ensure that it is compatible with the rules on free movement and with a system of open markets and undistorted competition more generally.
The FSR focuses on the regulation of the energy sector
(electricity and gas), with a special focus on EU energy
law and policy, the regulation of the communications and media sector (since 2009) and the regulation of the transport sector (since 2010). The FSR’s objective is to expose the European dimension of these regulatory topics and to contribute to the safeguarding of the common good of Europe by ensuring high-level and independent debate and research on economically and socially sound regulation.
European Networking and Training for National Competition Enforcers (ENTRANCE)
This project aims at training the national judges of the EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe which joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, as well as of countries from Western Balkans. Twenty judges will take part in the training course focusing on competition law enforcement in liberalized regulated network industries and State aids rules.
Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF)
The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, cofinanced by the European Union, is a further step in the
EU’s on-going effort to improve protection of media pluralism and media freedom in Europe and to establish what actions need to be taken at European and/or national levels to foster these objectives.
Other Work in Progress
Adrienne Héritier, jointly with David Coen, University College London, and Nikoleta Yordanova, University of Mannheim, works on the changes in regulatory policies (network utilities) in EU member states with a particular emphasis on the interaction between regulators and regulated firms. She is at present conducting a large survey of network firms of all sectors in all member states under the theme of ‘regulatory venue shopping’. The data have been collected and are at present being analysed and interpreted in the light of hypotheses on regulatory venue shopping. For about two years Adrienne Héritier, jointly with Yannis Karagiannis from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, has been conducting research on the regulation of civil aviation, in particular the emergence of regulatory transatlantic institutions in the field of civil aviation. The main focus is on the negotiation of an Open Skies Agreement between the EU and the US on the opening of aviation markets across the Atlantic.
Page last updated on 04 September 2018