Opening markets in network industries to competition is challenging. This chapter compares how such challenges have been addressed by the two most remarkable trade liberalization regimes—the internal market project of the European Union (EU) and the trade agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The chapter proposes a threefold framework to narrate the evolution of the EU and the WTO since their foundations—namely, the animating principles underlying the rules of market access, the procedural rules for enforcement, and the harmonization alternative. The results reveal that the different approaches to promoting market access and competition in the network industry find justification in the differences in institutional capabilities. These differences have enabled the EU to adjust its economic governance across time better than the WTO.
Manufacturing firms in the EU face the double challenge of decarbonisation and (international) competitive pressure. Based on the key findings of the 2024 EIB investment survey and considering the economic [...]
Regulation 1370/2007, as amended by the Fourth Railway Package, set the date of 25 December 2023 for the opening to competition of services subject to public service obligations. As opposed [...]
This policy brief contends that a new approach to Long Term Contracts (LTCs) in European competition policy based on new facts, new realities and a revised reasoning must be urgently [...]
In the North Seas region, a coalition of 9 countries expressed the ambition to quadruple their offshore wind capacity from 30 GW to 120 GW by 2030, and to then [...]
The EU's non-financial reporting (NFR) regulations have significant impacts on Global South stakeholders, firms that must report, actors lower in the value chain, and organisations seeking investment from NFR-compliant firms [...]
Innovation is closely linked to air transport, from the development of aircraft technologies to the creation of computer reservation systems. T he latter led to the development of global distribution [...]
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