Summary English

The dissertation argues that EC/EU competition policy, in content, scope, as well as form, has undergone a profound transformation since its enactment in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and that this transformation needs to be understood against the background of broader ideational and socioeconomic changes in the history of the European integration project. The transformation of what has been identified here as the European competition model, started in the mid-1980s. Neoliberal ideas increasingly gained a foothold in Europe, affecting EU economic policymaking, including competition policy. Throughout the 1990s, neoliberalism subsequently was established as the dominant ideology in the daily enforcement practice of the European Commission’s DG Competition. In the early 21 century, a fundamental overhaul of the EU competition regime institutionally anchored the neoliberal orientation. Backed up by sophisticated econometric modelling in the assessment of anticompetitive conduct, the reform consolidated a narrow ‘competition only’ focus, and the use of microeconomic reasoning.