The European Commission's 2008 Report on Competition Policy gives an overview of the main developments in EU competition policy and major enforcement actions. In the present economic and financial crisis situation, the report demonstrates how the tools of competition policy were used to face the financial and economic crisis and highlights the benefits that competition policy delivers to consumers.

According to European Commission's 2008 Report on Competition Policy, 2008 has been a very fruitful year for competition policy, be it in antitrust, state aid or merger control.

In the field of state aid, the Commission has moved towards a more economic effects-based analysis of the support measures notified by Member States through the adoption of a general block exemption regulation and the introduction of a balancing test.

The Commission also adopted on April 2008, the White Paper on damages actions for breach of the EU antitrust rules. The White Paper represents a step forward to overcoming the obstacles currently encountered by victims of competition problems from receiving effective compensation.

Pursuing its fight against cartels, the Commission has introduced a mechanism to settle cartel cases with the agreement of the parties involved, through a simplified procedure, which allows to deal more quickly with cases and free up resources to pursue other cartel cases and open new investigations. For the first time, the 2008 Annual Report includes a special chapter on a topic considered to be of particular importance in the field of competition policy. The topic chosen is "Cartels and consumers". In 2008, the Commission fined 34 undertakings in seven cartel decisions.

In the fight against abuses of dominant market positions, the Commission adopted in 2008 important decisions in the energy and IT sectors. As a follow up to the Commission's energy sector competition inquiry and after sustained investigations by the Commission, the German energy company E.ON voluntarily offered to divest significant parts of its business to address the concerns raised in the course of the investigation, allowing new competitors to enter the German energy market. Also in 2008, the Commission imposed a second penalty payment of €899 million on Microsoft for its non-compliance with a 2004 Commission decision requiring it to share essential interoperability information with its rivals on reasonable terms.

Competition Policy adapts to current economic situation

As the experience of 2008 shows, competition policy is neither static nor rigid but capable of taking account of changing economic realities, while ensuring a level playing field in the Single Market. This combination of firm principles with flexible processes has made competition policy a constructive and stabilising factor in the EU's financial system and the real economy at large. In particular, since the outbreak of the crisis in October 2008 until the end of the year, the Commission adopted around 40 decisions on support for banks and the real economy and issued three guidance documents on how Member States could use the state aid rules to support the financial sector and the economy during the crisis.