EU COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY IN THE TOURISM SECTOR 51 to divest its entire travel/tourism business in Ireland to allow the deal to go through. 4.3. Outlook As the overview above suggests, the results of the EUMR’s application to tourism sub-sectors have been mixed. A quick look into the future suggests that the collapse of the large travel group Thomas Cook will likely generate pan-European merger activity in the process of liquidating the firm’s valuable assets163. There should be no doubt, however, that the European Commission will not relax its standards of review. Where in a post-COVID-19 world companies involve the failing firm defence, they will have to support their claim by evidence. At the policy level, recently the Commission has been under an increased pressure to take into account the effects of globalisation and competitiveness considerations in the concentration analysis. Against this background, it has been argued that European companies could be squashed by the competition from very large actors in a global context164. The precise outcome of the process is hard to predict. Digitalisation has further proliferated calls for the review of the EU rules on concentration. In the discussion on reforming the EUmerger control modalities, various options have been suggested. The expert panel instituted by the Commission did not recommend changing the EUMR’s jurisdictional thresholds but proposed revisiting the substantive theories of harm, especially in cases whereby a dominant platform acquires a fast-growing target165. In addition to a “traditional” foreclosure analysis, the report called for updating non-horizontal merger guidelines “to inject some “horizontal” elements into the “conglomerate» theories of harm”166; in some cases, even the reversal of the burden of proof for digital acquisitions was suggested. Even though independent experts author the report, the Commission is expected to take some of its suggestions on board, likely, in the form of amendments to the legislation and/or soft-law instruments. 163 See, e.g. James Warrington, Thomas Cook liquidators secure bids for valuable airport slots, 16.10.2019, available at: https://www.cityam.com/thomas-cook-liquidators-secure-bids-for-valuable-airport-slots/. 164 A Franco-German Manifesto for a European industrial policy fit for the 21st Century, available at: https:// www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/F/franco-german-manifesto-for-a-european-industrial-policy. pdf%3F__blob%3DpublicationFile%26v%3D2. 165 Crémer Report, supra note 71, p. 11. 166 Ibid.
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