Adapting Competition Law to the Digital Transition. Two Challenges

The European responses to the COVID-19 outbreak have triggered an ongoing review process of competition rules and enforcement procedure to support the Union’s priorities. In this context, the European Commission published the Communication ‘A Competition Policy Fit for New Challenges' with the aim of underlining the ability of competition law to facilitate the green and digital transitions, and to strengthen the resilience of the Single Market. This Insight reflects on the substantive and procedural challenges posed by the digital transition. Indeed, the complementary role of competition law to stimulate the achievement of the digital targets is characterised by two tensions, relating respectively to the interpretation and application of competition rules and to the degree of centralisation with regard to the enforcement mechanisms. In the author’s view, EU competition law will offer dynamic substantive and procedural responses to the challenges of the digital transition.