Review of the EU Merger Guidelines – Stakeholder Workshops

Workshop 1: Scale, Competitiveness and Efficiencies

Workshop 2: Innovation, Investment, Sustainability, Labour and Democracy

In the context of the review of the Merger Guidelines, as a follow-up to the public consultation, DG Competition is organizing two interactive technical stakeholder workshops on key aspects of the review of the Merger Guidelines. The aim of the workshops is to gather views on these important topics of the review and discuss how they could be incorporated in the draft Merger Guidelines. 

During each workshop, participants will be divided into groups to discuss various topics in six Expert Sessions. A list of questions for each Expert session will be published on this webpage ahead of the workshop. A summary of the discussions from the Expert Sessions will be presented and discussed in two Plenary Sessions:

• Workshop 1: Scale, Competitiveness and Efficiencies
  • Expert Session 1: Scaling Success in the Internal Market - The role of EU Merger Control
  • Expert Session 2: Walking the enforcer’s tightrope: From scale to market power
  • Expert Session 3: Champions vs. Diversity : For a resilient Europe
  • Expert Session 4: Efficient or Just Ambitious? Assessing Verifiability of efficiencies in an uncertain world
  • Expert Session 5: Cutting Through the Specificity Fog - Unpacking Merger-Specific Benefits and their Alternatives
  • Expert Session 6: Who should Benefit and What’s the right Balance?
• Workshop 2: Innovation, Investment, Sustainability, Labour and Democracy
  • Expert Session 1: Mergers and Innovation: Catalyst or Killer? Forward-looking assessment of innovative and dynamic markets
  • Expert Session 2: Likely or not? Tackling uncertainty when assessing dynamic effects on innovation
  • Expert Session 3: Potential Competition and Ecosystems: raising competition barriers or raising the competition bar?
  • Expert Session 4: When green meets competition: navigating sustainability in merger control
  • Expert Session 5: Mergers and monopsony – When can merger control protect European workers?
  • Expert Session 6: The foundations of our democracy: When can merger control protect media plurality?

Register here

Registration instructions

We will close registrations when we reach full capacity for each event. 
Registration for the workshop of 4 December is closed.

When registering, please indicate your preferences for the respective morning and afternoon Expert Sessions (1^st, 2^nd, in order of preference). Please note that we will take your preference into account when allocating participants to the Expert Session, but we cannot guarantee a place at your preferred Expert Session.

DG Competition seeks to ensure a wide and diverse participation among stakeholders with practical experience in the application of the Merger Guidelines. If the number of applications exceeds the places available, DG Competition will accept applications with a view to ensure a balanced representation of all stakeholder categories, also taking into account the date of application and whether the applicant responded to the public consultation on the Merger Guidelines. In principle, no more than one participant per organisation will be admitted. 

DG Competition plans to inform the admitted participants via email by 7 November 2025 for the 1^st workshop and by 19 December 2025 for the 2^nd workshop.

Background to the stakeholder workshops

On 8 May 2025, the Commission launched two parallel consultations (the General Consultation and the In-Depth Consultation), seeking general and technical feedback from stakeholders on the Commission’s Horizontal and Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, which are currently being reviewed by the Commission. In the context of the In-Depth Consultation, the Commission published seven focused papers, elaborating on a wide range of current challenges and on the legal and economic parameters used in its merger control assessment. 

The contributions to the General Consultation and the In-Depth Consultation as well as a high-level summary of contributions to the General Consultation may be found on the Commission’s Have Your Say Portal. Download the overview of the main trends identified in the replies to the General and In-depth Consultations.

The aim of the initiative is to revise the Merger Guidelines in order to provide a modern, comprehensive, legally and economically sound, predictable, and lasting framework applicable to all types of mergers and all economic sectors. The revised Merger Guidelines will reflect transformational changes that have taken place in the economy. The primary mission of EU merger control will remain the same: preserving a vibrant and competitive internal market which drives companies to offer to their customers and consumers innovative, affordable, and high-quality products.

If you have any questions regarding the workshops, please contact comp-mg-reviewec [dot] europa [dot] eu (comp-mg-review[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).