(Bloomberg) -- The European Union should overhaul its merger rules to allow for the emergence of homegrown firms that can compete with global giants, according to the bloc’s incoming antitrust chief.
Teresa Ribera told EU lawmakers that the EU’s competition arm should adapt its approach to merger enforcement to boost the “competitiveness of EU companies,” in written responses to questions from European Parliament lawmakers published on Wednesday. Her push forms a key part of the bloc’s new drive to build up European industrial champions to compete with rivals from the US and China.
“My aim is to ensure that merger control gives the right weight to the EU economy’s needs and reflects overall policy objectives and market realities,” she wrote.
Ribera — currently Spain’s minister for the ecological transition — is due to appear in front of EU lawmakers for a confirmation hearing on Nov. 12 to become an executive vice president in charge of competition policy. She is due to take over from Margrethe Vestager, who was known for taking on large US tech firms.
The Spaniard wrote that the Silicon Valley firms that faced considerable scrutiny in Brussels over the past decade — including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. — will continue to confront “vigorous enforcement” of the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
The rules, which establish strict guardrails on what these firms can and can’t do, come with high potential fines for infringements of up to 10% of global annual turnover, or 20% in the case of repeat infringements. Apple and Meta have so far been formally warned that they need to adapt their services to comply with the rules, or run the risk of fines.
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