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DRAFT REPORT (2024/2079(INI))

On competition policy – annual report 2024

ECON-PR-765240

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs · Rapporteur: Lara Wolters

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Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text. The paragraph links open the paragraph a statement rests on — check the text itself before relying on it.

This draft report on the EU competition policy annual report 2024 reaffirms competition policy's role in protecting consumers and contributing to EU policies, and calls for updated enforcement, merger rules, and sectoral action. It supports a new competition tool, prioritizes exploitative abuses, urges structural remedies, and calls for an SGEI revision for affordable housing. It addresses killer acquisitions, innovation defence, digital economy realities, and long antitrust investigations. It highlights market concentration in digital and financial sectors, calls for vigorous enforcement of all competition rules, and stresses Parliament's involvement.

Committee position. The rapporteur proposes a resolution that reaffirms competition policy's role, calls for updated enforcement and merger rules, and stresses Parliament's involvement.

Key points

  1. Reaffirms that competition policy protects consumers and should contribute to all EU policies, including environment and digitalisation.
  2. Welcomes the Commission's commitment to a new State aid framework for the Clean Industrial Deal.
  3. Calls for industrial policy that boosts competitiveness without leading to market dominance or abuse, and cautions against market integration through mergers.
  4. Notes increased market concentration and profits over 25 years, and calls for monitoring State aid fragmentation and avoiding subsidy competition.
  5. Considers a permanent EU investment capacity vital, noting Draghi's estimate of EUR 800 billion per year needed.
  6. Welcomes the proposal for a 'new competition tool' as a flexible market investigation tool to address structural problems.
  7. Calls for prioritising exploitative abuses and updating guidelines, and for better use of structural remedies over behavioural ones.
  8. Calls for an SGEI revision to expand the exemption for affordable housing to middle-income households.
  9. Calls for adding a single market legal base in the EC Merger Regulation to address killer acquisitions, and for updating merger frameworks for the digital economy.
  10. Calls for addressing long antitrust investigations and for vigorous enforcement of all competition rules, including Foreign Subsidies Regulation and Digital Markets Act.
  11. Notes market concentration in digital and financial sectors, and calls for faster market integration where beneficial.
  12. Stresses Parliament should be sufficiently involved and calls for an interinstitutional agreement on competition policy.

Who is affected

  • The Commission and Member States are called on to monitor State aid effects and avoid subsidy competition.
  • The Commission is asked to update guidelines on exploitative abuses and to use structural remedies more.
  • Middle-income households could benefit from an expanded SGEI exemption for affordable housing.
  • Companies in digital markets face calls for vigorous enforcement of competition rules.

Figures and deadlines

  • EUR 800 billion per year needed to protect EU competitiveness, as estimated by Mario Draghi.

Legal basis: Articles 101 to 109 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union