The ‘new’ EU merger control and environmental and social sustainability concerns

The ‘new’ EU merger control and environmental and social sustainability concerns:
Opening the pandora’s box or responding to the legitimacy crisis of competition law?

About this event

The European Commission’s decision to revise the EU Merger Guidelines comes at a moment when several economic and political developments put pressures on competition authorities worldwide. Although the Council’s mandate to the Commission in the recast of the EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR’) in 2004 remains relevant today: ‘to publish guidance which should provide a sound economic framework for the assessment of concentrations with a view to determining whether or not they may be declared compatible with the common market’, it has become clear that the 2004 Horizontal Mergers Guidelines (‘HMG’) and the 2008 Non-Horizontal Mergers Guidelines (NHMG) no longer reflect the Commission’s evolving practices and new challenges. 

On 8 May 2025, in the context of its review process of the Merger Guidelines, the Commission published two parallel public consultations: (i) a General Consultation with high-level questions, and (ii) an In-depth Consultation, with technical questions on 7 relevant topics. These 7 topics include competitiveness and security, sustainability and clean technologies, public policy, security and labour market considerations. 

The EU needs new merger guidelines to ensure its competition policy remains effective and relevant amid profound changes in market dynamics, technology, and changing global economic conditions. There is also a heightened awareness that merger analysis must go beyond traditional price effects to consider impacts on innovation, but also labour markets, sustainability, resilience as well as potential future competition. The entrenchment of dominant positions and digital ecosystems, especially in the context of serial, killer, or nascent acquisitions has been cited as an important concern. Such dynamic analysis should however also consider the wider (and polycentric-inspired) perspective that integrates competition law and policy to the European social contract and the European Green Deal and sustainability-oriented policy overall framework, thus integrating a more macro-perspective. 

The conference will focus on the recent emphasis put by the consultation on the impact of EU merger control on environmental, social sustainability and broader (some would consider) non-competition concerns. By engaging in these ‘in-depth’ consultations, is the Commission moving towards a de facto public interest standard? What does it mean concretely in the law in action to consider environmental and social sustainability concerns in merger control? Are labour market considerations similar to considering the interest of workers and integrating employment considerations in merger control in general? What can we learn from recent competition assessment of mergers in the food value chain, some of which also dealt with social and environmental sustainability concerns? How would a broader framework of these mergers look like? What would (or should) be different? 

The programme

13.00 Registrations

13.10 Welcome
Ioannis Lianos, UCL Faculty of Laws, ICF

13.20: Panel 1: The rise of environmental sustainability, labour, resilience and security concerns: Are we Moving Towards a de facto public interest test in EU Merger Control?
Chair: Simon Holmes, ICF, Oxford University

Panellists

• Daniele Calisti, European Commission
• Griet Jans, Belgian Competition Authority and President, Association of Competition Economists
• Hilary Jennings, Balanced Economy
• Ioannis Lianos, UCL Faculty of Laws, ICF
• Andreas Reindl, Van Bael & Bellis
• Wolf Sauter, Vrije University Amsterdam
• Vanessa Turner, BEUC 

14.50: Panel 2: Environmental and social sustainability concerns in merger control: Has EU merger control failed workers? And citizens? How to remedy this?
Chair: Jean-Benoit Maisin, ICF

Panellists

• Liat Davis, GW Competition Law Centre
• Simon Holmes, ICF, Oxford University
• Dearbhal Murphy, FIMA
• Joakim Smedman, ETUC
• Andreas Sowa, European Commission

16.15- 16.30 Break

16.30 Panel 3 : Merger control in food value chains as a case study: retrospective and prospective
Chair: Ioannis Lianos, UCL Faculty of Laws, ICF

Panellists

• Jennifer Clapp, University of Waterloo & University of Sheffield
• Sean Ennis, UEA
• Daria Kotova, University of Maastricht
• Stavros Makris, UCL, Faculty of Laws, ICF
• Ulrich Muller, Rebalance Now
• Thibault Sire, European Commission
• Tom Verdonk, KU Leuven & Stibbe

18.30 Drinks reception