The Open Internet Project (OIP) association welcomes the stated desire of Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Competition, to reform European Union competition law, and to make it a “major priority”, and gives him his full support for this ambitious project.

One of the three main lines of work is the use of precautionary measures.

For more than two years, the OIP has been committed to ensuring that precautionary measures are made operational at European level, as they could allow the European Commission to quickly stop abuses of a dominant position, without having to wait several years. the end of the investigation on the merits.

To make these measures operational, they should be able to be imposed in the event of a risk of “immediate damage” to competition, and not of a risk of “irreparable damage”, as provided for in Article 8 of the Regulation ( EC) No. 1/2003 of the Council relating to the implementation of the competition rules provided for in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty.

The current standard of requirement makes precautionary measures very difficult to apply, and in fact they have hardly ever been applied for 15 years.