Competition Policy and the Euromed Partnership

This paper seeks to provide a critical assessment of the efforts made by the EC to stimulate the development of competition laws in the Mediterranean countries with which it is engaged in partnership agreements. It reviews the content of the competition provisions of the association agreements, as well as their effectiveness. In then examines the regular calls for convergence on the EC competition law model to which Mediterranean countries are object. There is indeed room for debate regarding the opportunity, as well as the nature of such convergence. The paper concludes that a deep convergence approach, whereby the non-candidate Partner countries would transpose EC competition rules in their domestic legal order, would provide many benefits for both the EC and these countries.