Consumers benefit from effective competition because it gives companies an incentive to offer consumers innovative and good quality products at competitive prices. Thankfully, competition policy is one of the EU’s foundation stones. The EU’s creators realised that there is no point in removing barriers to trade between Member

States if this Single Market can be divided, carved up and exploited by companies forming cartels, abusing a dominant position on a market for a particular good or service or merging to reduce competition. The EU’s founders also understood that the Single Market would not function properly if Member States were free to give subsidies liable to give some companies an unfair competitive advantage and so adversely impact consumer welfare. They therefore included rules on anti-competitive behaviour (antitrust rules) and state subsidies (State aid rules) in the EU’s founding treaties.

EU competition rules are enforced by the European Commission and, in the case of antitrust rules, by Member States’ competition authorities since 2004 (who undertake the majority of investigations into breaches of EU antitrust rules).

BEUC intervenes to ensure that consumer interests are given the priority they deserve when the Commission investigates breaches of competition law and when there are reviews of legislation and guidelines concerning application of these competition rules.