An Anticompetitive Europe Must Not Rise - by Dedan Gantley
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who offered the promise of challenging vested interests, has now reverted to the status quo of European elites from whence he came. At the recent European Union summit, he proposed slashing from the new European Constitution (which has been deliberately mislabeled a "reform treaty") its commitment to "free and undistorted competition." This is one of the few components of the Constitution that was clear and unambiguous, and which has been included in every version since the founding Treaty of Rome in 1957.
The removal of the competition clause raises grave questions about the EU's ability to take on monopolies, pursue antitrust measures, and tackle so-called "national champions"—the incumbent cartels much beloved of Sarkozy's predecessor (and manifested in his own case by the bailout of Alstom during his tenure as a deficit-increasing Finance Minister).
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