The greening process of European competition law: a critical analysis of the new Horizontal Guidelines through the Consumer Detergents case and Car Emissions case

Details

Supervisors

Defraigne, Jean-Christophe

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master de spécialisation en entreprises et politiques économiques européennes

Abstract

Recently, the European Commission has expressed its willingness to reconsider competition law to make it more suitable for the objectives established by the Green Deal. The purpose of this work is to provide a critical analysis of the new chapter on sustainability agreements proposed by the Commission in its revised Horizontal Guidelines. To this end, the first chapter establishes the importance of competition law in the European Union economy and describes the rules applicable to horizontal agreements now and in the future, at European and national level. Then, the second chapter consists of a reflexive analysis of two previous cases that were judged as cartels in the past, under the light of the proposed new chapter. Through this analysis, it has been possible to highlight not only the capacity of this new proposal to meet sustainability objectives but also the shortcomings that prevent the Commission from properly balancing the pursuit of its various conflicting objectives. In this perspective, this work also provides areas of improvement in order to address the weaknesses and improve the greening process of European competition law.