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Transnational competition policy networks in European Union history, 1945-1970
| Competition policy is one of the most successful and visible areas of supranational policy- making in the European Union. The policy has a predecessor in the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, 1951). Against the backdrop of the American government’s post-1945 policies to restructure the German heavy industries, transatlantic networks played a crucial role in moulding the antitrust provisions of the ECSC Treaty. While intra-European networks of civil servants and experts influenced the negotiations on the competition articles of the EEC Treaty (1957), it was the DG IV in the Commission which fleshed out these articles in close cooperation with experts.
Rather than add yet another snapshot to the history of competition policy, we propose in our paper to explore the role transnational networks played in the development of this key policy over a significant period of time, more specifically, the formative first twenty-five years. Focussing on the policy input of non-state actors such as academic and other experts at the interstate negotiations on the ECSC and the EEC treaties as well as in the formation of competition policy within DG IV, we will trace continuities and discontinuities on the level of actors as well as the ideas and policies they promoted. Ultimately, the paper will shed new light on why competition policy became such a success story within the EU.
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