78 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM witnessed speculations over the high-level political considerations given to this seemingly technical issue300. Furthermore, recently re-appointed, Commissioner Vestager has promised to “examine the practical aspects of our enforcement, including aspects such as market definition”301, still the main question remains how, and participation of stakeholders in shaping the changes will be important. As for mergers in the tourism sector, besides the medium and large-scale deals in traditional sectors (airlines, tour operators and so on), the Commission has also cleared concentrations involving novel legal issues (such as mergers of multi- -sided travel platforms). Policy-wise, in the wake of the EU’s industrial ambitions, global competitiveness takes a more prominent place, an issue closely intertwined with digital leadership. In order to better capture digital deals, modification of both horizontal and non-horizontal merger guidelines have been suggested302, and Commissioner Vestager, in the process of her confirmation in the dual role overseeing competition and digital markets, stated that the EU “merger enforcement must capture all mergers that can harm competition across borders in the Single Market”303. Thus, examining “whether the current merger rules allow us to sufficiently catch all important deals that can have this effect” will be a priority304. Besides, considerations of sustainability have become increasingly more prevalent305, and in spite of being too early to speculate about the exact modalities of the changes to come, it is safe to say that they will inevitably affect the tourism sector. Large digital players offering tourism-related services will have to stay particularly alert of Vestager II. As for the application of Article 101 TFEU in the tourism sector, the Court of Justice has made clear in the Eturas case that anticompetitive agreements will be sanctioned, no matter whether they originate from offline or online interactions. Many interesting investigations are currently underway. Following the disparities 300 Janith Aranze, Von der Leyen may change market definition, Global Competition Review, 04.09.2019, available at: https://globalcompetitionreview.com/article/1197050/von-der-leyen-may-change-market-definition. 301 Answers to the European Parliament – Questionnaire to the Commissioner-Designate Margrethe Vestager Executive Vice-President-designate for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, 27.09.2019, available at: https://www.mlex. com/GlobalAntitrust/DetailView.aspx?ppo=23&cid=1131515&siteid=190&rdir=1, p. 15. 302 Joint Proposal of the French, German and Polish governments – Modernising EU Competition Policy (2019), available at: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/M-O/modernising-eu-competition-policy.pdf?__ blob=publicationFile&v=4; Crémer Report, supra note 71. 303 Answers to the European Parliament, supra note 301, p. 9. 304 Ibid. 305 Margrethe Vestager, Competition and sustainability, speech at the GCLC Conference on Sustainability and CompetitionPolicy,Brussels,24.10.2019, availableat:https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/ vestager/announcements/competition-and-sustainability_en.
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