Welcome to the
Competition policy contributing to the EU Green Deal
A debate on how EU competition law enforcement and policy can best support the Green Deal, bringing together different perspectives from stakeholders.
The European Green Deal aims to transform the EU into a fairer and more prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy. The goal is for Europe to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, where economic growth is decoupled from resource use. The coronavirus pandemic makes those ambitions even more relevant. The European Commission has put forward a major recovery plan for Europe to help repair the economic and social damage brought about by the pandemic and to kick-start the European recovery in line with the twin green and digital transition goals.
As Executive Vice President Vestager has underlined: “To succeed, everyone in Europe will have to play their part – every individual, every public authority. And that includes competition enforcers.”
The goal of EU competition rules is to promote and protect effective competition in markets, delivering efficient outcomes to the benefit of consumers. Competitive markets encourage firms to produce at the lowest cost, to invest efficiently and to innovate and adopt more energy-efficient technologies. Such competitive pressure is a powerful incentive to use our planet’s scarce resources efficiently, and it complements environmental and climate policies and regulation aimed at internalising environmental costs. By helping to achieve efficient and competitive market outcomes, competition policy contributes, by its very nature, to the effectiveness of green policies. It is not in the lead when it comes to fighting climate change and protecting the environment – there are better, much more effective ways, such as regulation and taxation. However, competition policy can complement regulation and the question is, how could it do that most effectively? The Commission is responsible for the enforcement of competition rules based on its competences under the Treaty and existing EU secondary legislation, under the close supervision of the EU Courts. This means that, short of any changes in the existing legal framework, competition policy’s contribution to the Green Deal can only take place within these clearly-defined boundaries.
The purpose of this event is to gather ideas and proposals from everyone with a stake in the issue, including competition experts, academia, industry, environmental groups and consumer organisations. Around 200 contributions received ahead of the event have been analysed and will be fed into the conference debate, bringing together a rich array of perspectives on this important topic.
DG Competition policy
- Click here to learn more about DG Competition and the EU Green Deal
- Click here to listen to the speech by EVP Vestager on 22 September 2020 on “The Green Deal and Competition policy”
- Click here to learn more about the activities of DG Competition.
EU Green Deal
- Click here to learn more about the EU Green Deal.
#EUCOMPGreenDeal #EUGreenDeal
