Four antitrust and competition experts predict the trends and cases that will define European antitrust in 2025.
Enforcement of the Digital Markets Act in 2025
Marco Botta, European University Institute
2025 will be a crucial year to assess whether and to what extent the Digital Markets Act (DMA) may deliver its long-term promises of fostering fairness and contestability in digital markets.
The legislation, adopted in September 2022, has been effectively enforced only since March 2024, when the first six designated corporate “gatekeepers” of the digital economy submitted to the European Commission their compliance reports with the DMA obligations.
Generally unsatisfied with the reports, the Commission quickly launched non-compliance investigations on Meta, Apple and Google. In September 2024 the Commission also started two specification proceedings to assist Apple in complying with its interoperability obligations under the DMA. Finally, in November 2024, Booking.com submitted its compliance report, which has recently been presented in a public workshop.
Related, 2025 will be a crucial year for the DMA enforcement: the Commission must complete the pending infringement investigations concerning Meta, Apple and Alphabet by March 2025. It must also finalize the specification proceedings with Apple, and decide whether to open non-compliance investigations in relation to Booking.com, as it has done so far with most of the designated gatekeepers.
By promptly opening several non-compliance investigations in 2024, the European Commission has shown willingness to effectively enforce the DMA. In 2025, the Commission should concentrate on a few key priorities to ensure the regulation’s effectiveness.
The first relates to indicators and benchmarking. Under Article 53 of the DMA, the Commission has to carry out an evaluation of the impact of DMA obligations on end and business users three years after the DMA’s entry into force (i.e. May 3, 2026). In view of the incoming review, in 2025, the Commission should define indicators and benchmarks to start assessing whether and to what extent the DMA is fostering fairness and contestability in various core platform services.
Secondly, the Commission could engage in regulatory dialogue with the gatekeepers. Specification proceedings, such as those currently ongoing with Apple, could show a pathway for interaction between the Commission and gatekeepers. In 2025, the Commission should engage in a regulatory dialogue with other gatekeepers beyond just Apple. This regulatory dialogue could be more effective than infringement proceedings in ensuring effective compliance with the DMA.
Finally, in 2025, cooperation with the member states’ national competition authorities (NCAs) should be another priority for the Commission. NCAs are actively involved in enforcing the DMA by supporting the Commission in collecting evidence and complaints. NCAs may also investigate and sanction infringements of the DMA if the national law grants them this power. A recent study shows that most NCAs now enjoy this power. However, diverging decisions by NCAs might jeopardize the functioning of the internal market. Therefore, the Commission should actively exchange information and monitor national investigations into DMA compliance. Using Article 38(7) of the DMA, the Commission should actively prevent decisions by NCAs that could fracture DMA enforcement by opening its own investigations into the same cases. Unlike its predecessor Regulation 1/2003, the DMA is not based on a decentralized system of enforcement. One of the reasons for adopting the DMA was to prevent fragmentation of the EU single market due to varying regulatory interventions in the EU member states. In this contest, the European Commission should be keen to preserve its leadership role in the DMA enforcement.
Policy at a crossroads
Justus Haucap, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
European competition policy is at a crossroads. In her mission letter to Teresa Ribera, the new commissioner responsible, among many other things, for the competition portfolio, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a “new approach to competition policy.” As von der Leyen says, the new approach must be “more supportive of companies scaling up in global markets.” It remains to be seen what this precisely means but a review of the horizontal merger control guidelines has been put onto the agenda. Many competition lawyers and economists are gravely concerned that this implies, by and large, a more tolerant approach to merger control, even though the Commission has only blocked three proposed acquisitions (HHI/DSME, Illumina/Grail, Booking/eTraveli) over the last five years anyway.
According to von der Leyen’s mission letter, merger control “should give adequate weight to the European economy’s more acute needs in respect of resilience, efficiency and innovation.” Most likely, the Commission’s president is not aware of the increasing number of empirical papers that recently demonstrated that innovation often suffers from decreasing competition and that resilience is typically harmed by market concentration. Instead, the narrative supported by large business interest groups that firms need to grow in size and be protected from unfair competition from abroad has won the political debate, to the detriment of European consumers. It remains to be seen how Commissioner Ribera will execute merger control, keeping in mind that socialist politicians in Europe often support big business, as big businesses typically have—in contrast to small and medium enterprises—much higher degrees of unionization.
Interestingly, the mission letter also explicitly mentions killer acquisitions (but not common ownership, the other hot topic in merger policy). Killer acquisitions may be somewhat more difficult for the Commission to address though, as the European Union Court of Justice has, in a landmark judgement on the prohibition of the Illumina/Grail merger, rejected the Commission’s controversial interpretation of Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation, according to which mergers could be referred to the Commission even though they meet no filing thresholds anywhere in the EU. The importance of the Court’s decision should not be overestimated though, since many proposed mergers still meet sales or transaction value thresholds in some member states and can be, therefore, in principle, referred to the Commission. Interestingly enough, while the mission letter does highlight the risk of killer acquisitions, it only speaks about “killer acquisitions from foreign companies.” It remains to be seen whether and how this will be reflected in revised merger guidelines, but that formulation certainly highlights the risk that European competition policy may become more and more an instrument of protectionism rather than a tool for keeping markets open. This concern is aggravated by the Commission’s intent “to accelerate authorisation of compatible aids and transactions in strategic fields,” as outlined in the mission letter.
With respect to anticompetitive conduct—by and large ignored in the mission statement with the exception of a brief reference to “enforcement actions under the Digital Markets Act” towards the end of the letter—the antitrust community eagerly awaits the final guidelines on exclusionary abuses. Quite generally, the Commission’s draft guidelines propose a more presumption-based approach. This appears to be sensible given the appallingly long times enforcement procedures have taken in the past. Given that for digital gatekeepers many potentially abusive practices are covered by the Digital Markets Act, the role of article 102 may be reduced in any case and relevant for much fewer cases than in recent times.
The role of consumer welfare
Stefan Thomas, Tübingen University
My prediction for 2025 is that the consumer welfare doctrine will continue to play a pivotal role in the European Union. At first glance, this might seem inconsistent with some recent developments, notably the draft guidelines on Article 102 TFEU. Over the past decade, the “more economic approach” associated with the consumer welfare doctrine has faced mounting criticism for its allegedly excessive evidentiary standards rendering enforcement ineffective. The draft guidelines on Article 102 TFEU seem to address these concerns. The European Commission proposes greater reliance on presumptions and resorts to notions such as “competition on the merits” in key areas. While these terms have occasionally appeared in court decisions, their prominent inclusion in the guidelines might be seen as indicative of a shift towards a “more judicial approach,” potentially diverging from strict economic analysis.
Does this imply a diminishing role for consumer welfare? I believe not. The draft guidelines explicitly preserve the possibility of an efficiency defense, aligning with jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice. Moreover, dealing with the presumptions outlined in the guidelines can involve a consumer welfare-related analysis, especially since they are rebuttable.
It is true that the draft guidelines convey an intent to streamline enforcement. However, even the Commission is unable to provide a more suitable alternative to consumer welfare as the fundamental benchmark. Terminology cannot substitute for concepts. Antitrust law inherently involves reconciling competing freedoms —for example, a dominant firm’s freedom to use its infrastructure exclusively versus competitors’ freedom to access downstream markets. Abstract notions such as “competition on the merits,” if construed endogenously, fail to resolve which freedom should prevail in a given case without veering into circular reasoning. Consumer welfare, by contrast, offers an objective framework for balancing potential harms and benefits. For instance, it allows for balancing improvements in allocative efficiency from infrastructure access against the potential adverse effects such access might have on dynamic efficiency, such as diminished incentives to invest in infrastructure.
Interestingly, in other areas of antitrust, the Commission demonstrates its reticence to relinquish consumer welfare, particularly when considering defenses. The 2023 Horizontal Guidelines on Article 101 TFEU, for example, devote an entire section to sustainability agreements. There, the Commission delves into the complexities of applying the consumer welfare standard when assessing consumers’ willingness to pay for both the use-value and non-use-value of sustainability in goods. While the Commission tentatively acknowledges the possibility of considering benefits that accrue to a broader segment of the population (“collective benefits”), it maintains that antitrust balancing must consider the harm and benefit experienced by the affected consumer within the broader population. This approach reflects a commitment to remain as closely aligned as possible with the traditional consumer welfare doctrine.
An antitrust framework that distances itself from consumer welfare ultimately disconnects from the consumer as the “ultimate arbiter” of market outcomes. I do not believe this is the direction the Commission should or would ultimately pursue. It would render antitrust enforcement more susceptible to rhetorical persuasion than to scientific rigor—a development that would serve neither agencies nor stakeholders, least of all the consumer.
Will competition policy die in Europe?
Tommaso Valletti, Imperial College Business School
Competition policy in Europe has been inconsequential for the past few years, and that won’t change in 2025. Why is competition policy moribund? See the reports from Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta championing more market concentration in the European Union, and promises from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finance Minister Rachel Reeves to rein in the United Kingdom’s competition authority to boost innovation and investment. Past competition enforcement has been deemed an obstacle to growth and industrial policy, rather than a fulcrum.
But even before, a hyperfocus on consumer welfare and efficiencies had neutered competition enforcement. The only plank of competition regulation (some) European competition enforcers had been revivifying was merger enforcement, and now they’ve been told to stop that. In 2025 and beyond, mergers that should have been reviewed and challenged will be waved through. They’ll come attached with remedies that’ll keep busy the usual cottage industry of consultants, but in the grand scheme of things these remedies will prove ineffective and unenforceable. (Incidentally, the idea that regulators are independent of politicians is also pretty dead.)
Will the final nail in the coffin of competition policy be a disaster? Perhaps surprising to some, I don’t think so. Going from an average of blocking one merger per year to zero (these are actual average numbers in the EU from the past 30 years) will do very little to the economy. Nothing will happen for better or worse. Perhaps a few more mergers will be proposed and approved. Efficiencies will not be magically unleashed because large firms have already long achieved their economies of scale. And for those who consider effective competition enforcement a barrier to economic growth, can anyone identify one cogent example in the EU or U.K. where investment, innovation, job growth, or any other goal did not occur because a merger was blocked or remedied?
The demotion of competition policy is supposed to enable industrial policy. The return of industrial policy is an excellent thing. Here there are risks and opportunities. The opportunity is to do it right, in a coordinated way, selecting strategic industries (yes, choices must be made —nothing is neutral), and making sure that subsidies unlock a bad equilibrium and crowds in private investment. However, the risk is gigantic: squandering public funds, giving money in the EU reflecting the power of individual member states (Germany and France first, followed by Italy and Spain), and giving subsidies to investment that would have occurred anyway that actually crowds out private investment. There is an even greater risk when it comes to artificial intelligence: giving money and our extremely precious data to the usual Big Tech: this would strangle home-grown innovation and startups in the EU and the U.K. and make both dependent on foreign private entities for decades to come.
Which brings me to my last point. Even if concentration in markets won’t change a lot in the new regime, the effects of concentration of market power will be truly devastating. Do our politicians understand that the founding fathers of antitrust were concerned about market power not because of efficiency arguments or prices going up by 2-3%, but because it would subvert our democracies?
Private litigation and ex ante regulation to regulate Big Tech may help keep competition policy on life support. But 2025 will be a year to forget for competition policy in Europe.
Authors’ Disclosures: Justus Haucap is the founder of the Duesseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf. He is also a director of the private consultancy Duesseldorf Competition Economics Ltd., which advises various private entities and public institutions on competition matters. The other authors report no conflicts of interest. You can read our disclosure policy here.
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.
