"Competition, Concentration and Competitiveness in the Common Market: Towards an EC Merger Control Regulation"

[From the Introduction]. The struggle for global markets between the EC, Japan, and the United States has become an important issue on the agenda of both policy-makers and scholars. To some analysts, EC competition policy is the cornerstone of the "Europe 1992" program. In their view, the success of the Single Integrated Market depends largely on the effectiveness of the competition policy of the European Community. This study seeks to contribute to our understanding of the driving forces that can explain the formulation and implementation of past, present and future EC competition policy with respect to mergers and acquisitions. One key goal of the "Europe 1992" program is to increase the competitiveness of EC enterprises. This goal can be achieved by reducing governmental constraints that protect favored enterprises against open competition. At the same time, competition policy is, according to many analysts, "an important and necessary instrument to ensure an efficient allocation of resources, stimulate enterprises to make an optimal use of their capabilities and encourage firms to develop new research techniques and products and to prevent a distortion of free market competition" (EC, 1989a: 13)