EU Competition Law and Democracy in the Shadow of Rule of Law Backsliding

Competition is a vital component not only of functioning market economies but also of democratic legal and political systems. In Europe, one of the key questions so prominently advanced by the Ordoliberal School was how democratic repercussions of concentrated economic and political power should be addressed. Scholars in this school proposed a constitutional framework in which competition law plays a central role in safeguarding a pluralistic competitive process and maintaining a democratic society. The role of competition as a fundamental institution of a legal system has since remained a salient concept. It influenced the drafters of the Treaty of Rome, and its central role in creating democratic political systems was restated in the 1993 Copenhagen accession criteria of the European Union (EU).