Indeed, according to Article 3 TEU, the Union's aim (“Ziel”) is to promote peace, the Union’s values and the well-being of its peoples (1). It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and based on a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientifc and technological advance (3). The Union shall pursue its objectives by appropriate means commensurate with the competences which are conferred upon it in the Treaties (6). According to Kiliç, “it is clear that EU competition law has objectives other than just regulating the market.” If so, competition law also has the objective to ensure 29 sustainability and environmental protection. In short, Kiliç sees well-being as “longterm consumer welfare”. Kiliç looks at well-being through the lens of digital regulation, but his argumentative pattern is fully transposable to sustainability. What Kiliç does not discuss in his paper is whether and how this long-term consumer welfare goal can transpire in a competition law decision in line with the principle of conferral. His reasoning implies that it could. If well-being is long-term consumer welfare within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU, DG Comp, national competition authorities (when applying Article 101 TFEU) and national courts could, and even would have to, prohibit environmentally harmful but fnancially pro-competitive agreements. b) What is the reach of Querschnittsklauseln? An alternative path seems to be the route via the Querschnittsklauseln. This path may even be overlappting with Kiliç’s long-term consumer welfare. We need to go back to the basics. Pursuant to Article 11 TFEU, environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the defnition and implementation of the Union's policies and activities with a view to promoting sustainable development. According to several authors, the case law cited above (Wouters, etc.) suggests that Querschnittsklauseln can lead to a restrictive application of Article 101(1). While this should remain the exception to the rule that Article 101(1) is normally about hard economic facts, and that wider social considerations normally only come into play in the justifcation assessment under Article 101(3) TFEU, there is no logical reason 30 why Article 101(1) TFEU should and could be immunized against the “environmentalization of competition policy”. However, while it is easy to accept that sustainability considerations are behind the soft safe harbour for sustainability standardization agreements, it is still unclear whether and how sustainability considerations can compel competition authorities and courts to block an otherwise pro-competitive agreement. There has been a recent relevant development in the feld of energy policy. Article 194 TFEU mentions, inter alia, the principle of energy solidarity. More specifcally, the article commands the EU to conduct its energy policy in a spirit of solidarity. In Ibid., p. vii. 29 Dirk Gasse, Bedeutung der Querschnittsklauseln (2000), p. 173; Ludger Breuer, Das EU- 30 Kartellrecht im Kraftfeld der Unionsziele (2013), p. 492; but cf. Dirk Ehle, Die Einbeziehung des Umweltschutzes in das Europäische Kartellrecht (1997), p. 125.
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