Introduction
On 18 October 2007, EU leaders agreed on a final text of the new EU Reform Treaty during the summit in Lisbon. After two years of stalemate, all 27 member states consent to this new Treaty, even though some political issues still had to be resolved. The target date for ratification will be June 2009 (EurActiv, 2007b).
Although the Reform Treaty was praised by most EU leaders, it also has to face criticism (EurActiv, 2007c). On the one hand, critics find fault with the rash com-promise concerning the “last-minute problems”, for example, Italy’s unhappiness with the reallocation of European Parliament seats in the Treaty or Poland, which was demanding more changes to the bloc's voting rules (International Herald Trib-une, 2007). On the other hand, critics argue that the new EU Reform Treaty could be seen as the “same old EU constitution in a different package” (The Scotsman, 2007).
Of course, besides the items which are kept or dropped, there are new elements determined in the new Reform Treaty so it is obvious, that there are differences in comparison to the old EU constitution. But how will these differences, changes, have an effect on business? How significant are they? Stephen Mulvey describes the critical uncertainty concerning the new Reform Treaty and its changes as fol-lows:
The question here is whether the essential qualities that made the constitu-tion a constitution have been removed, or whether the things that have been changed are mere details. (Mulvey, 2007)
This report will have a closer look at the possible effects of the new EU Reform Treaty concerning competition and the importance of competition as a part of the internal market.
Competition and the possible effects of the EU Reform Treaty