Tommaso Valletti (DG COMP): Economics in competition law - Working together

The chief competition economist (CCE) position was created in September 2003. At that time, it was envisioned that the CCE will perform two important roles: (i) the CCE and his/her team provides economic support to the work of case team and (ii) the CCE provides the commissioner with an independent opinion as part of checks and balances. Today how important is this second function for the CCE? As the CCE and her/his team are involved in numerous investigations, supporting the case team, how can you guarantee to offer an independent opinion without being “captured”? Commissioner Monti, an economist, adopted a series of reforms, in the early 2000s, in order to ensure that EU competition law is compatible with robust economic thinking. In part, this was triggered by a few court cases that