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Regulating Markets: Peak Business Associations and the Origins of European Competition Policy

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Societal Actors in European Integration

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ((PSEUP))

Abstract

The ignorance of French officials in the field of competition policy in the 1950s was striking in the eyes of an influential German negotiator of the Rome Treaties that led to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC). In his memoirs, Alfred Müller-Armack recalls that in 1956 he was confronted with an intransigent French civil servant, who refused his successive propositions for competition policy provisions.’ Thus, Müller-Armack, then head of the Economic Policy Department and a close collaborator of Ludwig Erhard in the German Economics Ministry, let his French counterpart make his own proposal. A few days later, he was surprised to read a French memorandum that was very close to his own position.

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Notes

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© 2013 Werner Bührer and Laurent Warlouzet

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Bührer, W., Warlouzet, L. (2013). Regulating Markets: Peak Business Associations and the Origins of European Competition Policy. In: Kaiser, W., Meyer, JH. (eds) Societal Actors in European Integration. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137017659_4

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