The Institutional Design of European Competition Policy

This paper analyzes the institutional design of the European competition policy system. Besides the
multi-level public enforcement, the paper describes other two fundamental dimensions of the
European competition policy system: the relationship between public and private enforcement and that
between competition law enforcement and sector specific regulation, with particular regards with the
Electronic Communications sector.
The main effort of the paper consists in representing the EU Competition policy system as a web of
vertical and horizontal relationships among a large set of actors, sometimes coordinated by formal or
informal mechanisms but still characterized by competence overlaps and strategic interdependencies.
Finally the paper aims at assessing the relevant economic trade-offs associated to these overlaps and
interactions in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the system, giving some policy suggestions for
the future evolution of its overall design.