Brook, O orcid.org/0000-0001-7636-3615 (2022) In search of a European economic imaginary of competition: fifty years of the Commission’s annual reports. European Law Open, 1 (4). pp. 822-851. ISSN 2752-6135
Abstract
The term ‘competition’ is a core notion for social and economic thinking and the organisation of markets. Nevertheless, this paper shows that there is no single acceptable economic imaginary ascribed to the notion in Europe. The search for the meaning of competition is an ongoing journey, from the EU’s very inception 60 years ago to the present day, which is inherently tied to the objectives, scope, and boundaries of EU (competition) law and to socio-economic transformations.
The paper first reviews the history of the notion in both common-usage language and in legal-economic thinking. It exposes the emergence of three parallel, partly conflicting, imaginaries influencing the notion in EU competition law: Keynesian, ordoliberal, and neoliberal. After demonstrating that no single imaginary was adopted by EU primary, secondary, or soft laws, it applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the Commission’s annual reports on competition (1971–2020) in search for the meaning of competition. The paper reveals that the notion of competition had acquired one meaning in ‘hard’ contexts of the enforcement (scope of the prohibition of competition; exceptions or justifications for allowing otherwise anti-competitive behaviour), and another meaning in ‘softer’ contexts (mandates of the competition rules, and to a lesser extent – selection of enforcement priorities). While the ‘hard’ contexts have experienced a transformation from Keynesian and ordoliberal imaginary of competition to a neoliberal notion; the ‘soft’ contexts still invoke a broader notion reflecting influences from all three theories.
Finally, the paper argues that although the lack of a clear definition for competition undoubtedly raises challenges relating to the rule of law, legal certainty, and uniformity, its ambiguity also serves as a powerful tool in safeguarding the durability and legitimacy of competition as an economic imaginary. It allows tailoring the notion of competition to changing legal, economic, and social conditions without a Treaty amendment.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2023. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | EU law, EU competition law, economic imaginary, Keynesian, Ordoliberal, neoliberal |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Apr 2023 12:36 |
Last Modified: | 17 Apr 2023 12:36 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/elo.2023.4 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198222 |