A Critical Discussion on the Co-existence of Efficiency and Environmental Protection Goals in EU Competition Law

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-297-2_140How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Consumer welfare; Efficiency; Environment; Coexistence; Merger control; Horizontal agreement

Abstract

There has been a wide discussion about whether efficiency and environmental protection goals should co-exist in EU competition law. This article argues that efficiency and environmental goals should co-exist. This is because the traditional efficiency-only analysis is likely to cause market failure and EU constitutional provisions have left room for environmental considerations to be included. This article explores how efficiency and environmental goals co-exist from the perspective of economic analysis and competition practice with a focus on merger control and horizontal agreement. Specifically speaking, environmental benefits should be a part of consumer welfare and only be evaluated when anti-competitive effects exist by investigating consumers how much they are willing to pay for environmental services. In merger control, whether to allow a merger should be evaluated on a post-merger price internalizing environmental externalities and whether the post-merger production method is green. For horizontal agreements, sustainable horizontal agreements should be permitted provided that they meet the conditions in Article 101(3) TFEU, despite the risks of reducing efficiency.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xinpeng Liu
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/10/31
TI  - A Critical Discussion on the Co-existence of Efficiency and Environmental Protection Goals in EU Competition Law
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 8th International Seminar on Education, Management and Social Sciences (ISEMSS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1183
EP  - 1189
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-297-2_140
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-297-2_140
ID  - Liu2024
ER  -