Delegating Powers to National Authorities: the Determinants of EU Commission Decisions on Mergers (2004-2012)

Why does the EU Commission delegate the assessment of mergers to national authorities? According to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Commission evaluates mergers in order to prohibit the creation of a dominant player in the common market. Where a merger threatens to affect the competition in a domestic market, the Commission can decide to refer the assessment to the member state concerned. The present work argues that the referral to national authorities is influenced not only by the threats to domestic competition, but also the uncertainty of Commission about the consequences of its decisions on merger regulation. Moving from the assumption that the level of uncertainty depends on the experienced gained from past assessments, the analysis investigates the determinants of delegation to national authorities between 2004, when the reform of merger regulation consolidated the mechanisms of referral, to 2012. Preliminary results show that the referrals depend on the possible threats to domestic markets as well as the experience gained from past assessments. The analysis controls for other relevant factors such as, some specific economic sector, the involvement of countries outside European Union, the different commissioners on competition and the level of workload.