Accession to the EU's competition law regime: a law and governance approach

The aim of this paper is to analyse the interplay between the EU’s external (pre-accession) and internal (post-accession) governance model in the field of competition law and to reach a deeper understanding of the EU’s Europeanization strategy at the intersection of these two governance models. The paper will critically examine the effectiveness of the internal governance mechanisms of Regulation 1/2003 with regard to the goals of the decentralized enforcement system, as well as with regard to their effectiveness in steering post-accession compliance and Europeanization among the Member States. Following the Introduction, section II of the paper maps out the EU’s external law and governance model that applies vis-à-vis third countries that wish to join the EU. In section III, the paper examines the extent and the manner in which this external model has shaped the EU’s internal governance model vis-à-vis its Member States. Section IV analyses Regulation 1/2003 as the main driver behind the effective implementation of EU competition law in the Member States as well as its governance mechanisms as they framed the Europeanization process. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of post-accession compliance, section IV examines the compound procedural framework, composed of EU and national administrative rules, which underlies and challenges the enforcement of EU competition law. Also specifically investigated here is how the administrative capacity of national competition authorities affects competition law enforcement. This inquiry is enriched in section V with a detailed assessment of the European Competition Network as the EU’s main mechanism for the monitoring of Member States’ postaccession compliance with EU law.