The EU’s new competition chief has signalled a shake-up of anti-trust rules to make it easier for innovative companies to merge, as well as a relaxation of state aid policy to spur the green transition.
In her first major speech since taking office last week, Teresa Ribera said EU merger and anti-trust rules needed to “take full account of innovation and future competition”, signalling a move towards the reform agenda laid out by the former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi in a widely feted report.
Ribera left her post as Spain’s deputy prime minister to become European Commission vice-president for “a clean, just and competitive transition”, making her effectively the most powerful EU official behind the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen.
The Spanish socialist is also in charge of competition, giving her an unusually wide remit and signalling that Brussels sees changes to state aid rules as critical to shifting Europe’s economy away from fossil fuels.
Ribera said on Tuesday that markets alone could not deliver “the social policies and the outcomes we need”, so state subsidies and other support were necessary “to create the right incentives for companies to invest where they would not otherwise”.
She follows in the footsteps of Margrethe Vestager, the high-profile Danish politician who ordered Apple to pay €13bn (£10.7bn) in underpaid taxes during a decade-long crusade against “aggressive tax planning”.
Changes to EU competition rules, which govern mergers and limit state subsidies, are widely expected. In her mission letter to Ribera, von der Leyen said: “Europe needs a new approach to competition policy” that is “more supportive of companies scaling up in global markets”.
The commission blocked a rail merger between Germany’s Siemens and France’s Alstom in 2019, arguing that it would increase prices for vital railway signalling systems.
The French and German governments, which supported the merger, argued that it would have created a European champion better placed to compete against their Chinese rival, CRRC, which has been winning contracts overseas.
Concerns have since grown that EU competition rules are hindering innovation and the green transition.
In September, the Draghi report proposed updating the EU’s merger regulation guidelines to allow companies to join forces if they can prove that it boosts innovation, “an innovation defence”. Draghi, who is also a former president of the European Central Bank, argued as well that EU state aid decisions should give greater weight to innovation and common European projects.
In her speech on Tuesday, Ribera promised the commission would revise its state aid rules as part of the “clean industrial deal” it is expected to publish by early March 2025. This “new state aid framework” would mean getting renewable energy projects up and running faster, speeding up the decarbonisation of industry and ensuring manufacturing capacity for clean tech, she said.
Powerful governments are in favour of Ribera’s agenda, but more economically liberal member states, such as those in central and eastern Europe, are wary of moves perceived to stifle innovation and drive up prices.
Ribera is also tasked with ensuring that EU countries with the deepest pockets to subsidise green and hi-tech industries do not massively outspend their neighbours, tilting the playing field.
