Reforming Article 102 TFEU: A European Social Contract Approach?

About this event

This open to the public workshop on “Reforming Article 102 TFEU” will be held at the Fondation Universitaire , Brussels on April 11th  between 2pm-6:15 pm. The purpose of the workshop will be to reflect on the Article 102 reform process, beyond the projected Guidelines on Exclusionary Conduct under Article 102 TFEU (also including exploitative abuses) and will involve various stakeholders whose voice is not usually heard in competition law debates.

Our aim is to reflect on the way ahead for Article 102 TFEU - and explore how this may better respond to the European social contract.

The event will be structured in two panels and will conclude with a policy discussion.

The first panel will discuss the current framework for exclusionary abuses and will engage with some of the ideas put forward by the European Commission in its Policy brief, the revised Communication but also the decisional practice of NCAs. The idea will be to examine the zeitgeist of Art. 102 TFEU.

The second panel will aim to explore the future of Article 102 and how this may respond better to the needs of the European social contract, going beyond the current discussion on exclusionary abuses.

The policy discussion will take stock of these developments and will explore how policymakers may respond better to the multitude of interests involved and represented by different stakeholders.

The Programme

14:00 Arrival and registration

14.15 Introduction:
Ioannis Lianos (Co-director, Centre for Law, Economics & Society, UCL Faculty of Laws; Member, Competition Appeal Tribunal UK; ICF)

14.30  Panel 1: The Zeitgeist of Article 102 TFEU: between continuity and change
Chair: Julian Nowag (Associate Professor, University of Lund, ICF)

Panellists

• Inge Bernaets (Director, Policy and Strategy, European Commission)
• Kati Cseres (Professor, University of Amsterdam, ICF)
• Anna Gerbrandy (Professor, Utrecht University)
• Simon Holmes (Visiting professor, Oxford University; Member, Competition Appeal Tribunal UK; ICF)
• Deni Mantzari (Co-director, UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society; Associate professor, UCL Laws)
• Stavros Makris (Lecturer, University of Glasgow)
• Florian Wagner von Papp (Professor, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg)

16:00 Comfort break

16.15 Panel 2: Article 102 TFEU and the European Social Contract
Chair: Ioannis Lianos (Co-director, Centre for Law, Economics & Society, UCL Faculty of Laws; Member, Competition Appeal Tribunal UK; ICF)

16:15 The Policymakers’ Perspective

• Inge Bernaets (Director, Policy and Strategy, European Commission)
• Damien Gerard (Director General, Belgian Competition Authority)
• Dr. Thorsten Käseberg (Head of unit, competition policy, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Federal Republic of Germany

16:40 The Stakeholders’ Perspective

• Dimitirs Giakoulas (IME -GSEVEE; Small Enterprises Institute of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchant)
• Ioannis Kouvakas (Senior Legal Officer and Assistant General Counsel, Privacy International)
• Ulrich Muller (Rebalance Now)
• Agustin Reyna (Director, Legal and Economic Affairs (BEUC))
• Maria Luisa Stasi (Head of Law and Policy for Digital Markets, The Article 19)
• Suzanne Wixforth (Deputy Head of Unit for Economic Policies of the Austrian Chamber of Labour)
• Severine Picard (Director, Progressive Policies)

18:15 Networking reception
19:00 Event ends.

Watch the recording