Anticompetitive behaviour of public enterprises : Lessons to be learned from European State Aid control

The financial crisis has put pre-crisis political consensus with respect to market organization in Europe under pressure : Several formerly private banks have come under state control ; the willingness of governments to bailout failing firms has risen again ; only the future will show whether liberalization efforts will come to a halt. [1] In such an environment the question arises whether competition policy requires specific rules vis-à-vis public firms. Indeed, this has been the topic of a recent OECD roundtable [2] and of last year's competition policy conference of the Swedish Competition authority. The latter was initiated by a current competition policy reform in Sweden allowing the application of Article 102 TFEU to public firms without proving dominance (but proving common