196 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM internal market. EU competition rules lay down a well-defined legal framework for companies to do business in the internal market, enabling businesses of all sizes to compete fairly. This legal framework has evolved during the past six decades but adheres strictly to the principle of the rule of law under the close scrutiny by the European courts. The Commission rigorously applies the principles of non-discrimination, procedural fairness, transparency, predictability, the right to be heard and the protection of confidentiality in its daily enforcement practice”57. The EU internal market that is based on free competition is historically constructed on the assumption that national barriers and monopolies (public or private) need to be removed. From an economic standpoint, maintaining domestic monopolies hampers the long-term international competitiveness of the companies, and, from a political point of view, national monopolies are fought because the EU competition rules were supposed to remove former State monopolies in regulated sectors such as air transport. This analysis is not based on the short or medium term competition analysis. The EU Commission stated in Ryanair/Aer Lingus (2007) and Aegean/ Olympic (2011) that “all the prohibition decisions were related to transactions involving two airlines having large bases at the same ‘home’”58. In Ryanair/Aer Lingus III (2013), the EU Commission pointed out the fact that the merged entity would have created a dominant position on 46 routes from and to the three busiest main airports in Ireland (Dublin, Shannon and Cork). It can be noted that these mergers would have created a dominant carrier, mainly on the territory of two EU member states as a whole: Ireland and Greece (being Dublin and Athens, by far, the most important doors of entry of these territories in terms of traffic). In that respect, these decisions cannot be seen only from a short-term economic perspective. The question of whether strong remedies could have enabled the Commission to clear the mergers under strict conditions remains open and these decisions should be seen from the angle of the long-term economic integration of EU carriers within the internal market. The replacement of national monopolies by private monopolies would have created substantial 57 Report COM(2019) 339 final on Competition Policy 2018, 15/07/2019, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, SWD(2019) 297 final. 58 EU Commission, Press release, 27 February 2013, “Mergers: Commission prohibits Ryanair’s proposed takeover of Aer Lingus”.
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