INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW irreversible damage to fauna, flora and the wider biosphere. The municipality has signed off on the project as it welcomes the investment, and the existing environmental regulations are rather inefficient but complied with. The protesters think about complaining to both DG COMP and to the local competition authority, known for its strong stance on sustainability issues, and they plan to launch a climate action in a national court. Without going into detail, we consider that this project does not restrict “competition” in the classic sense where “competition” is understood as a purely market-related concept. Nor does this project limit technical development or output. It is just a straightforward real estate project. Ten years ago, a competition advisor may have considered this a clearcut case, but today the assessments seems more complex. There are two potential routes to success for the complainant in our example. The first one is a wider interpretation of the concept of “competition”. The second one is via the Querschnittsklauseln. a) What is that “competition” which Article 101(1) TFEU protects? We tend to take it for granted that Article 101 protects competition by prohibiting agreements that restrict competition. But what exactly is that “competition”, this unknown if not unknowable deity? The Treaty does not provide an answer to that question. It merely gives us certain examples of how a restriction of competition may look like. Moreover, it is very difficult to find a definition of “competition” in any book about EU competition law. Google defines it as “an event or contest in which people take part in order to establish superiority or supremacy in a particular area”. If applied to Article 101 (1), this would mean that competition law protects all agreements restricting an individual attempt to establish superiority or supremacy in a particular area. Not sure DG COMP would subscribe to that definition. Taking one of the leading case books22 from a generation still interested in the genealogy of intellectual concepts, it begins with a chapter on the economics of competition. The very first sentence is: “Nowadays, there is a clear awareness of competition policy makers, competition lawyers and judges of the importance of economics for their daily work. In the EU and in the US, it is normal practice to discuss competition cases in terms of economic concepts such as market power, entry 22 Jonathan Faull & Ali Nikpay, The EU Law of Competition, 2007.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==