{"id":2164,"date":"2019-04-04T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T14:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/?p=2164"},"modified":"2019-04-12T10:35:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T08:35:38","slug":"national-industrial-strategy-2030-relax-take-it-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/blog\/2019\/04\/04\/national-industrial-strategy-2030-relax-take-it-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"National Industrial Strategy 2030 \u2013 Relax, take it easy!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Peter Altmaier, Germany\u2019s Minister of Economics, presented his <\/em>National Industrial Strategy 2030<\/em><\/a> there was uproar with competition lawyers and economists<\/a>. Philipp Steinberg, one of the thought leaders in the Ministry, sets out his thoughts in D\u2019Kart today.<\/em>
<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dieser Text ist auch auf Deutsch verf\u00fcgbar. Klicken Sie dazu einfach oben rechts auf die Flagge.<\/em> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


Globalisation is a fact that Europe and all countries need to accept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe is a\nglobal player and has no reason to fear global competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Competition\nis key for driving forward innovation. And competition law is key for\nprotecting competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ncontinues to be our guiding principle. If one bears that in mind, I believe\nthat everybody fearing the end of effective merger control because of the\npropositions on the re-evaluation of competition- and merger control law\ncontained in the National Industrial Strategy (NIS) and the Franco-German\nmanifesto can relax a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same\ntime, we cannot close our eyes in front of all the disruption around us. The\nworld is changing. The digital revolution and platform economy with its\nwinner-takes-all mentality, zero-marginal cost characteristics, network effects,\npath dependency, technological and regulatory uncertainty call for a re-evaluation\nof the role of the state \u2013 and of competition law. We need to make sure that\nplatform-giants don\u2019t suppress effective competition and market access. This is\none main aim we have set off to put into practice with our competition-law\nrecast (\u201c10. GWB-Novelle\u201d), having at its centre the sharpening of the\nanti-abuse provisions including in cases of only relative market power. As part\nof the revision, we want to adjust our instruments in a way that takes better\naccount of platform companies that engage in abusive practices below the\nthreshold of market dominance, for example certain types of interdependencies. We\nwill assess whether certain types of conduct should be prohibited and whether\nto include a requirement for accessing data. We also want to speed up\nproceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


We need to react to the fact that all business sectors are becoming increasingly digital. This trend has meant that competition authorities had to deal with a number of complex issues over the last few years \u2013 in terms of merger control, the monitoring systems to prevent abuses of market power, and the assessment of cooperation projects. All these decisions have received considerable attention and can be considered landmarks for protecting competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we\nneed to continue to ensure that there is a level playing field. We need to make\nsure that competition continues to be fair on our rapidly changing markets. We\nneed to discuss whether our existing framework is able to adequately address\nthe global and European dimension of competition for our economies and\nsocieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The following considerations can serve as a starting point for addressing global market power on the rise, and the role of competition law: Big is beautiful only if it is based on innovation and when there is continuous innovation that helps promote competition. Big is bad when size or market power are used to distort competition. Competition policy needs to ensure that growth is based on innovation and \u2013 undistorted \u2013 competition. We need to be able to effectively address abuse of strong market positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This helps to\nunderstand the proposition of the NIS on European and national champions. In my\nopinion, national and European champions are companies that are able to compete\nsuccessfully at the global scale. National champions are not always big\ncompanies \u2013 this applies particularly to Germany. They are often medium-sized\nand can even be innovation or market leaders in their field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


National and global champions often emerge through a merger (external growth). In cases where external growth does not distort competition on a given market, it can be considered unproblematic. This is being closely monitored within the merger control framework. There is nothing to prevent national champions from dominating a market as a result of internal growth; however, they are subject to the monitoring systems to prevent abuses of market power. They must not abuse their market position by engaging in anti-competitive behaviour or collusion. By applying these principles, it should be pretty straightforward to ensure a level playing field as we assess and limit market power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem\nis, however, that there is no global competition law nor a world competition\nauthority to implement unrestricted competition effectively on a global scale. And\nit is my impression that this vision is becoming more elusive than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


What we see today is that we have a large number of national and European regulations with some conflicting provisions on business activities and the procedures for assessing the impact on our markets, and that there is state intervention in these markets. And there is unfair competition through state-owned and state-subsidised actors. In particular, we want to discuss how we can give greater consideration to state-controlled undertakings within the framework of merger control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is\nbecause we believe that state intervention \u2013 in the form of state control or\nsubsidies \u2013 has an impact on the market power of companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Some of our European rules on merger control date back to the 90s. We want to assess how the European Commission\u2019s guidelines and also possibly the Merger Control Regulation can be revised in a way that takes better account of potential and actual distortive competition. This could provide more flexibility for assessing the relevant market under the European merger control framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the\nGerman merger control framework, we now have the possibility to scrutinise\nmergers involving companies whose turnover is rather low, but which have great\nvalue \u2013 for example because of the data they possess \u2013 as in the case of the\ntakeover of WhatsApp by Facebook. It would make a lot of sense to adopt a\nsimilar rule at the EU level. And we should have a broad and open discussion\nabout this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


As explained above, national or European champions don\u2019t necessarily have to be giants. However, in order to compete effectively on the world markets, it might be helpful to join forces. We want to facilitate this. One realistic possibility would be to provide more certainty under competition law for European companies working together on foreign markets (which are, for example, undertaking joint marketing activities), thus facilitating these forms of cooperation. I would like to call this a \u201eCompetition Law Important Project of Common European Interest\u201d, IPCEI \u2013 modelled on the \u201cstate-aid-law\u201d IPCEI, granting states the possibility to subsidise activities with an added European value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not\nwant to create a mechanism for the Council to overrule Commission\u2019s decisions.\nThe Franco-German Manifesto does not contain this proposition; it only calls\nfor an examination of this possibility. However, whereas a convincing argument\ncan be made that the \u201cMinistererlaubnis\u201d in Germany is a clever tool in order\nto depoliticise the decisions of the antitrust authority (Bundeskartellamt), in\nEurope this aim would be much harder to achieve due to the tendency to make\ndeals having nothing to do with merger control and public interest\nconsiderations able to overrule the competition reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Our competition law \u2013 which is based on the principle of undistorted competition \u2013 has proved its value and has considerably helped innovative European companies to become global market leaders. This pressure on companies to be innovative must be upheld. But the regulatory framework has to live up to the challenges of the 21st century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial\npolicy considerations need to be taken account of primarily in other policy\nareas. We need to address protectionist and expansive economic policies by<\/p>\n\n\n\n