EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

naturally raised questions as to how far the improvement of environmental protection should and can become a criterion for the application of the prohibition of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. The contributions in these proceedings papers even show a certain dissonance in the emphasis between the west and the east of the EU, as the conference participants from the „new member states“ were much more cautious or even sceptical about enriching the standard of higher efficiency producing consumer welfare with environmental (and also social) sustainability considerations. From a certain perspective, this is a continuation of the eternal debate on whether competition policy and law should be approached more holistically, whether these instruments should be more coherent with other policies pursuing key societal and integration objectives, or whether they should retain their proven and largely exclusive value-referential framework. The blurring of the values and objectives that competition law is supposed to pursue can undoubtedly lead to less legal certainty and less efficiency in the functioning of markets. On the other hand, the critical situation of climate change and social division in Western societies may be so urgent that competition policy and law should not shy away from direct involvement in addressing it. The conference did not, of course, resolve this issue, but its tone – as evidenced by the diverse mix of views in these proceedings – underlined the need for a balanced approach that does not dismiss either the existing virtues of anti trust, based on the pursuit of greater efficiency that benefits consumers, or the need to get business to actively seek solutions to pressing problems of the society as a whole. 3. Of course, the evergreen topics of antitrust are also represented in this conference proceedings, which are a firm part of academic research and application practice regardless of current trends and pressing issues. More or less in the same number as the topic of sustainability, the reader will find in these proceedings papers devoted to the issues of competition law enforcement – its effectiveness and also the related protection of the fundamental rights of the parties and, in addition, to the issues of theory, if by theory we mean the definition of basic concepts such as the undertaking in competition law, the application of competition rules outside the field of traditional business (i.e., in the area of sport), or the comparison of EU and US approaches to competition law. It is a nice reminder that competition protection has both its very topical role ‚in the spotlight‘, contributing to solving the pressing problems of the moment, and at the same time its ongoing ‚nitty-gritty work‘ to keep markets competitive and open so that buyers can get the ‚best value for money‘ from them.

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