EU will be reluctant to change competition policy

Subject EU competition policy. Significance The European Commission will decide next month whether to allow a merger between the railway engineering businesses of Siemens (Germany) and Alstom (France), two of the largest European industrial companies. The proposed merger and the Commission’s oversight of it have reopened a debate about the relationship between competition policy and the strategic competitiveness of European firms in the global economy, with the rise of China a particular concern. Impacts The United Kingdoms' exit from the EU will be a blow to the Nordic countries and Ireland, all sceptical of EU competition rules. The transport market for new rolling stock and infrastructure may be hit by a global slowdown. Siemens could seek a merger with Canadian transport company Bombardier if the proposed Siemens-Alstom merger is prohibited.

Author(s):  
I. Danilin

The “technological war” between the United States and China that started in 2017–2018 raises a number of questions about the future role of technological development as a factor in relations between superpowers. Analysis shows that for the United States this conflict is caused by changing balance of risks and benefits of the liberal model of globalization due to the rise of China`s power and growing geopolitical tensions between the two nations. In this context, emerging, especially digital, technologies appear to be a new battlefield between superpowers. Within the realist framework, actors consider emerging technologies as a key factor for strengthening their global postures. This, among other things, contributes to securitized technological agenda and strengthens its geopolitical dimension. Neo-technonationalism has become the platform that integrates different processes and goals into new U.S. policy. Although historically neo-technonationalism took its roots in Asia, the evolving market situation prompted the United States to rethink existing approaches and to upgrade the techno-nationalist dimension of its policy. Considering similar policies of China and the EU (i. e. the European digital sovereignty policy), this trend shapes new realities of technological “blocs”, the struggle for expansion of technological platforms, and technological conflicts. Taking into account prospective development needs of the global economy and future specification of mutual interest areas, as new digital technologies mature, the ground for normalizing the dialogue between the superpowers will emerge. However, at least in the U.S.–China case, this issue will be complicated by geopolitical contradictions that leave little room for any serious compromise.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 765-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall Germain ◽  
Herman Mark Schwartz

AbstractThe rise of China has sparked a debate about the economic and political consequences for the global economy of the internationalisation of the renminbi. We argue that the dominant focus of this literature – primarily the external conditions and requirements for a national currency to become an international currency – misspecifies the connections between the international and domestic requirements for currency internationalisation, as well as the potential to become the dominant international reserve currency. We correct this oversight by developing an integrated theoretical framework that highlights the domestic adjustment costs which a state must accommodate before its currency can carry the weight of internationalisation. These costs constitute a critical element of an international currency’s ‘political economy’, and they force states to negotiate contentious social trade-offs among competing domestic claims on finite public resources in a sustainable manner. Our analysis suggests that the likelihood of China being able to successfully negotiate the social costs associated with running a fully internationalised currency is currently very low, precisely because this will place unacceptable pressure on groups benefiting from the economic and political status quo. This further suggests that the American dollar will remain unchallenged as the global economy’s pre-eminent international currency for the foreseeable future.


Subject Japan's foreign policy strategy. Significance Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has changed core structures and frameworks within which Japan's foreign and defence policies are made. These changes can be seen as responses to the rise of China. Impacts Japan will use aid to counter China's influence, competing on quality and a record of delivering on promises. Laws passed under Abe could allow much greater defence cooperation with Australia and India. India is a future partner in Japan's developing relationship with Africa to compete with China’s Africa strategy.


Subject EU competition policy under Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Significance The Competition Commissioner is one of the EU's most powerful posts. Barely six months after taking it up, Denmark's Margrethe Vestager has established herself as an activist holder of the position, willing to tackle some of the most sensitive items in the Commission's in-tray. Impacts The Commission's anti-trust action against Google may feed growing Transatlantic trade tensions In the longer term, any Commission ruling against Gazprom could limit Russia's ability to use the firm as a political instrument. The Commission's Amazon probe appears to have prompted that firm's decision to stop booking non-Luxembourg EU sales in Luxembourg. Vestager may struggle to reconcile consumer interests with industry claims about improving competitiveness, as in telecoms mergers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-283
Author(s):  
Chris Townley ◽  
Alexander H. Türk

The allocation of legislative and executive competences in multilevel governance structures affects who controls norms. Over the last two decades we see a general trend in EU law, towards “flexibility, mixity and differentiation.” Yet many think that EU competition policy and enforcement marches to a different tune. Competence is rarely discussed there and, when it is, most assume that uniformity is desirable. This article discusses the EU constitutional system as it relates to competition policy and enforcement. It investigates what choices the EU Treaties make about diversity. As with many constitutional arrangements, the EU Treaties sometimes leave space for others to decide. In these spaces we advocate answers, based on our understanding of the constitutional settlement between the EU and the Member States. This has major implications for, amongst others: the Commission’s power to relieve the Member States’ national competition authorities (NCAs) of their competence to apply Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); the vires of EU merger control outside of the remit of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU; Commission efforts to make the NCAs more independent of political influence; and the resolution of conflicts between EU and national competition rules.


2021 ◽  
pp. 440-466
Author(s):  
Lawrence Edwards

This chapter uses South Africa’s integration in the global economy as a lens to understand the dynamics behind South Africa’s current economic performance. It first presents the historical context, commencing from the country’s position as a gold exporter pursuing an import substitution industrialization strategy, to its transition to a more open economy with the ending of sanctions and tariff liberalization from the early 1990s. The focus then shifts to a critical assessment of South Africa’s trade performance and trade policy in the post-apartheid period. This covers the impact of government policies, such as the multilateral tariff liberalization from 1994 to 2000, preferential tariff reform from 2000 and sector-driven industrial policy from 2007, as well as the dramatic changes in the global trading order—the rise of China from 2001, and the emergence of global value chains. To illustrate these relationships, the chapter draws on new insights using disaggregated product- and firm-level trade data.


Author(s):  
Ian Taylor

China’s relations with Nigeria have accelerated since the 2000s, which is linked to the rise of China as a global player, its exponential economic growth and its consumption of raw materials. The material foundations upon which links have been built with China have served to reify Nigeria’s dependent position in the global economy and bear the hallmarks of an unbalanced and exploitative relationship. This fact is now recognized by many Nigerian commentators within civil society and the policymaking elites. The structural nature of Nigeria’s dependent relations with China is becoming more apparent: its trade profile with China is characterized by a lopsided dependence on the export of raw materials, and the import of manufactured goods. Since independence, the ruling cliques within Nigeria have overseen a progressive deepening of dependency on mineral products, resulting in oil and gas becoming the be-all and end-all of Nigerian economic (and thus political) life.


Author(s):  
Brandon Cheong

By examining the Sino-Guyanese relationship and China’s parastatal involvement in Guyana, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the former’s potential for upending conventional geopolitical realities in Latin America and the Caribbean are overstated. As Western public concern regarding the perils of a China to the international order grows, the case of Guyana draws attention to China’s still deepening integration within the neoliberal global economy. Guyana’s historic relationship with China, geostrategic location as a Belt and Road Initiative partner country, and the recent emergence of the Guyana Basin as an energy nexus, suggests its importance as a bellwether of China’s presence in the region. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, assumptions regarding China’s re-emergence in the global order are being overturned frequently. It remains unclear what impact contemporary socio-economic, political, or ecological instabilities will have on a realignment of the incumbent international system, the need for nuanced and novel approaches for assessing the agency of a risen China is unequivocal.


2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Luis Palma Martos ◽  
José Luis García Hidalgo

Abstract A global economy cannot be driven in a consistent way by national competition laws. Both the liberalization of markets and the revolution in information and communication have triggered an unprecedented degree of interrelations of national economies. This leads to the internationalization of restrictive business practices. Despite of the WTO efforts and some agreements inside it related with antitrust, global markets have no competition rules. There are a number of economic arguments addressed to take real steps in order to establish a global framework for competition policy. Currently, the international system of competition policy seems gradually ill-suited for dealing with transnational restrictive business practices. The issue is now which organizational form and what degree of decentralization would be optimal for a multilevel system of international competition policy. Depending on the goals of the project, different degrees of decentralization would be more or less desirable.


Author(s):  
Michelle Murray

This chapter summarizes the book’s main argument, outlines its contribution to international relations scholarship, and applies the argument to current debates about the rise of China. Two positions dominate current debates about US foreign policy and the rise of China: engagement, which calls for integrating China deeply into the global economy and institutional architecture of the international order; and containment, which sees security competition as an inevitable outgrowth of Chinese power, and calls for the United States to preemptively increase its military presence in the region. This chapter argues that by focusing narrowly on China’s economic and military interests, the current debate misses an important aspect of China’s rise because it fails to consider the social motivations of rising great powers. Building on the core argument of this book, it suggests that only by accepting China’s recognition-claims can the United States facilitate China’s peaceful rise. The chapter concludes by exploring how the United States might navigate a foreign policy that both approaches China as a recognized partner in leading the international order and also protects its regional and global interests—and if such recognition is even possible.


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