Overview
The Commission has undertaken the broadest review in the field of mergers of the past two decades. New Draft Merger Guidelines were published on 30 April 2026.
The existing Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, together the ‘Merger Guidelines’, respectively published in 2004 and 2008, provide guidance on the Commission’s practice when assessing the impact of mergers on competition, within the legal framework of the EU Merger Regulation.
Since the introduction of both sets of guidelines, there have been transformational changes in the economy, ranging from digitalisation and globalisation to decarbonisation, which can impact competitive dynamics in many markets. Many of those changes have already surfaced in the enforcement practice of the Commission. After about 20 years, the current review of these guidelines will serve to update the assessment framework for mergers in light of these changes and new market realities, and also enable us to reflect the Commission’s case practice and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The aim is to provide a comprehensive, predictable, and lasting framework. The revised Merger Guidelines should offer a refreshed, legally and economically sound, predictable, and evidence-based analytical framework, for all types of mergers and all economic sectors. 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.
The public consultation on the draft text of the new Merger Guidelines has closed on 26 June 2026. This process was accompanied by a stakeholder workshop that took place on 10 June 2026. Read a Summary of the Stakeholder Workshop of 10 June 2026.
The Commission has published an Economic Study on Dynamic Effects of Mergers (Volume 1 - Main report & Volume 2 - Detailed literature review) on 24 August 2026. A dedicated economic workshop to present and discuss the results of the study will take place in Brussels on 11 September 2026. Registration for this event is now closed.
In addition, a joint DG COMP/OECD conference on 'Modernising merger control for an evolving world' will take place on 7 September 2026 in Paris (and online). The discussions will cover the draft Merger Guidelines and registrations are open.
The Commission will continue engaging with all stakeholders before finalising its review process in Q4 2026.
More information on each of these aspects of the process can be found below.
1. Consultation on the draft text of the new Merger Guidelines
On 30 April 2026, DG COMP published the draft text of the new Merger Guidelines for consultation.
The public consultation on the draft text of the new Merger Guidelines has now closed. The purpose of this consultation was to gather views of stakeholders and citizens on the draft Merger Guidelines, which will inform the final text of the Merger Guidelines.
A reference copy of the draft text of the new Merger Guidelines can be accessed here Draft Communication from the Commission. In addition to this, to provide further context to the public consultation, DG COMP has published a summary of the main technical novelties in the draft text.
Responses to the public consultation:
2. Economic study on dynamic effects of mergers
The Commission has published on 24 August 2024 an Economic Study on Dynamic Effects of Mergers (Volume 1 - Main report & Volume 2 - Detailed literature review). This study is informing the review of the Merger Guidelines.
Considering both potential harms and benefits, the study provides a framework to assess the impact of mergers on innovation and investment, market entry and exit, and on future product market competition.
The study provides analytical foundations to assess whether a merger has a positive or negative impact on these dynamic factors, and how they trade off against other merger effects, such as changes in prices or output in current product markets.
The study consists of a comprehensive assessment of dynamic merger effects in two volumes.
Volume 1 covers the following topics:
- Part A: An introduction and overview of the study. It also outlines the conceptual and policy background, including a brief summary of the historical debate on competition and innovation.
- Part B: A comprehensive synopsis of the relevant literature integrating theoretical and empirical insights on dynamic merger effects from over 450 publications in industrial economics, financial economics, macroeconomics, and the business literature.
- Part C: The core of the study, outlining a conceptual framework to assess dynamic merger effects based on the synopsis of the literature in Part B. The conceptual framework proposed by the study differentiates between (i) anticompetitive dynamic effects from horizontal mergers, (ii) procompetitive dynamic effects from horizontal mergers, (iii) dynamic effects of non-horizontal mergers (including foreclosure and procompetitive effects), and (iv) entrenchment. It also provides guidance on how to balance dynamic harms and benefits.
- Part D: An evaluation of three strategic sectors (biopharmaceuticals, quantum computing, and clean technologies). It provides a sector-specific assessment of the current challenges and bottlenecks to investment and innovation in the EU, and of how different policy tools including merger control can help address such challenges.
Volume 2 provides additional detail on the academic literature summarised in Volume 1, including on the methodology for the selection of papers and their scope. It also provides an individual assessment of each paper considered for this study.
The study was prepared by Oxera together with lead academic researcher Professor Otto Toivanen as well as two economic advisers, Professors Yassine Lefouili and Leonardo Madio.
For more information, check DG Competition’s dedicated subpage for tenders.
In the context of the publication of the study, an economic workshop to present and discuss the results of the study will take place in Brussels on 11 September 2026. This workshop will feature a broad range of high-profile academic and other professional economists.
More information about the workshop, including the agenda, can be found on the dedicated webpage. Registration for this event is now closed.
3. Past Activities
The General Consultation
Between 8 May 2025 and 3 September 2025, the Commission carried out a General Consultation. For more information, please refer to the Have Your Say page.
Download the contributions to this consultation and a high-level summary.
The In-Depth Consultation
In parallel, the Commission also carried out an In-depth Consultation with technical questions on seven key topics of the review.
For each topic, 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 papers provide (i) technical background to help understand the context in which the Commission is seeking feedback, and (ii) a number of topic-related technical questions. The seven papers can be found here:
- Topic A: Competitiveness and resilience
- Topic B: Assessing market power using structural features and other market indicators
- Topic C: Innovation and other dynamic elements in merger control
- Topic D: Sustainability and clean technologies
- Topic E: Digitalisation
- Topic F: Efficiencies
- Topic G: Public policy, security and labour market considerations
The contributions to this consultation may be found below:
1st, 2nd and 3rd Stakeholder Workshops
In the context of the review of the Merger Guidelines, as a follow-up to the General and In-Depth Consultation, DG Competition organised two interactive technical stakeholder workshops on key aspects of the review of the Merger Guidelines.
The aim of the workshops was to gather views on these important topics and discuss how they could be incorporated in the Merger Guidelines.
The workshops took place on 4 December 2025 and 20 January 2026, respectively. During the workshops, the key opinion trends emerging from the public consultations were debated.
In the context of the public consultation on the draft Merger Guidelines, DG Competition organised a third interactive technical stakeholder workshop on aspects of the draft text of the Merger Guidelines on 10 June 2026.
The aim of this workshop was to gather views and suggestions on the draft Merger Guidelines and discuss how these could be incorporated in the final text.
More information about the workshops is available on the Stakeholder Workshops webpage.
Conference: Shaping the Future of EU Merger Control
DG Competition hosted on 5 March 2026 a conference to discuss key aspects of the ongoing review of the Merger Guidelines. This event brought together leading experts and stakeholders to explore the latest developments and challenges in EU merger control.
The conference informed the Draft Merger Guidelines, ensuring that the EU’s merger control framework remains effective and fit for purpose in the context of evolving market realities. The event featured a distinguished lineup of speakers, including prominent competition law and policy experts.
The conference was closed by Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera.
You can watch a video of the highlights of the Conference here.
4. Background to this initiative
The main objective of the merger control system is to preserve a vibrant and competitive internal market, with dynamic competition. It allows companies to gain scale, to innovate, to invest, and to offer better products. At the same time, merger control prevents the accumulation of market power in the hands of one or a small number of companies, which can harm consumers and businesses, and damage the EU’s productivity and economic growth.
The legal basis for EU merger control is the EU Merger Regulation. In assessing proposed mergers, the Commission considers whether they can be expected to significantly impede effective competition in the EU. If they do not, they are approved unconditionally. If they do, the merging companies may offer remedies, i.e., propose certain modifications to the deal that would guarantee continued competition on the market. If no adequate remedies to the competition concerns have been proposed by the merging parties, the Commission may prohibit the transaction to prevent harmful effects on businesses and consumers in terms of higher prices, lower quality or a more limited choice of goods or services.
Mergers that may impact competition can involve companies that are actual or potential competitors on the same market (horizontal mergers) or firms that are active on different levels of the supply chain or in neighbouring markets (non-horizontal mergers). To provide guidance on how it assesses these different types of mergers under the EU Merger Regulation and their compatibility with the internal market, the Commission issued guidelines: the Horizontal Merger Guidelines (published in 2004) and the Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines (published in 2008). The Merger Guidelines reflected, at the time of publication, the principles underpinning the Commission’s evolving experience appraising horizontal and non-horizontal mergers under the EU Merger Regulation (that of 1989 as well as 2004) as well as the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Over the more than 20 years since the 2004 EU Merger Regulation and its accompanying guidelines, there have been significant market trends and geopolitical developments that have led to transformational shifts in many markets, putting the existing merger control framework to the test. Like all competition tools, EU merger control needs to remain sharp and up to date.
While the objective of merger control, in accordance with the EU Merger Regulation, remains valid and unchanged—ensuring mergers do not distort competition in the internal market—the Commission’s assessment of mergers under the EU Merger Regulation has evolved to capture those new realities. There has also been case law of the Court of Justice which has informed the Commission’s interpretation of the EU Merger Regulation and the current Merger Guidelines.
In light of this, the Commission is proposing to adapt both the Horizontal and Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines in a holistic exercise.
Contact
If you have any general questions on the review process, please contact comp-mg-review
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (COMP-MG-REVIEW[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
If you have any questions related to the Economic Study, please contact COMP-MERGER-STUDYec [dot] europa [dot] eu (COMP-MERGER-STUDY[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)