Although the European Union’s draft Merger Guidelines acknowledge that consolidation in digital platforms can harm the democratic process, they need to up their efforts to protect media competition and a quality public sphere. In a new blogpost on ProMarket, Vicky Robertson discusses three steps that could help EU merger control support liberal democracy: (i) The European Commission should assume its role as a central actor when it comes to merger control of digital media platforms; (ii) non-price parameters relevant for media pluralism should be made actionable in theories of harm; and (iii) synergies between the European Media Freedom Act and EU merger control should be identified and leveraged. The blogpost can be found here. It is part of a symposium on the draft EU Merger Guidelines.
