Last month, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced her nominated 26 commissioners, the newly appointed Competition Commissioner and Spanish Deputy Prime Minister, Teresa Ribera, was the first on the list.

As the first Executive Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the "Clean, Fair, and Competitive Transition," Ribera's upcoming role has been described by several European media outlets as possibly the "most powerful position in the history of the European Commission." In addition to enforcing antitrust laws, she will also be in charge of Europe's green transition, ensuring that the European Union achieves a low-carbon and industrialized economy simultaneously.

According to von der Leyen's mission letter, Ribera is required to innovate the EU's competition policy to support the innovation and competitiveness of European companies and to enable them to lead globally.

For the past decade, European antitrust enforcement led by the outgoing Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has been tough and rigorous. In recent interviews, Ribera has already revealed her different approach to enforcement. "(Rules) can be relaxed from multiple aspects, but always to strengthen Europe's capabilities," Ribera said, "We will reform these rules to enhance flexibility and give industries a strategic European dimension."

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Ninette Dodoo, head of the Chinese antitrust practice at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, told Yicai Global that, based on von der Leyen's statements after her reappointment, European companies' competitiveness in global competition has declined, which means Europe needs to advance competition policy in a completely new way and method, "to support European companies in expanding their scale in the global market and to ensure Europe has a fair business environment."

Ribera's career has been largely focused on climate change policy, and during her tenure as Spain's Minister for Ecological Transition, she oversaw the closure of Spain's coal industry and negotiated the phase-out of nuclear power by 2035. After Chile's last-minute withdrawal from the 2019 United Nations climate talks, she proactively asked Madrid to host the conference and won an exemption from EU electricity market rules for Spain and Portugal during the gas crisis.

In the field of competition policy, Ribera is still a newcomer, but she already has a very clear point of view.

"Europe's competitiveness issue cannot be solved by 'champion companies' from three or four countries. We need sufficient scale to compete in the international market, but we also need the internal market to function well, to build a balanced business ecosystem for all parties," she also criticized the EU's merger rules, stating that she would shorten the time for reviewing transactions.

Ribera's stance also echoes von der Leyen's work suggestions for her in the mission letter, and some suggestions contradict the antitrust agenda stance under Vestager's tenure over the past decade.Specifically, von der Leyen has asked Riviera to review the rules on horizontal mergers; further simplify national subsidy policies while maintaining a fair competitive environment; pay attention to the challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises, especially the risks posed by "killer acquisitions"; strengthen and accelerate the enforcement of competition rules, focusing on the most distortive subsidies and behaviors, while promoting the acceleration of authorization for subsidies and transactions in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence; cooperate with other Commission members to "vigorously" enforce the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR); actively promote cooperation among global competition agencies; address the challenges and dynamics of the digital market, and carry out "quick and effective enforcement actions" in accordance with the Digital Markets Act.

In addition, von der Leyen specifically reminded Riviera to refer to the report on "The Future of European Competitiveness" commissioned by former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. The core theme of this report is to simplify and innovate competition policy to enhance Europe's ability to compete with global competitors.

In Draghi's report, he advocated for the promotion of growth and innovation within the EU through the readjustment of competition and merger review policies, and to take into account geopolitical and supply chain threats. The report emphasized the importance of aligning the single market, therefore suggesting to relax merger restrictions in strategic industries such as telecommunications and defense to achieve industrial policy objectives and create European "champion enterprises" that can compete in the global market.

Furthermore, Draghi's report also stated that existing merger review and antitrust investigation procedures are too slow and complex, especially in industries with rapid innovation such as technology and energy. Draghi suggested accelerating the review process in these areas to ensure that Europe can quickly respond to market changes. He also proposed to revive the "New Competition Tool" (NCT), allowing regulators to proactively address anti-competitive behaviors in key industries to address structural competition issues, such as tacit monopolies and market access barriers, especially in markets with strong network effects.

What is most different from the past decade is that Draghi suggested introducing an "innovation defense" mechanism in merger transactions, that is, if the transaction will promote innovation, it should be approved based on this premise. He believes that innovation can be seen as an efficiency that is enough to offset the potential negative impact on competition. However, the current Competition Commissioner Vestager is often skeptical about the innovation argument, so she has strictly reviewed and blocked many high-profile mergers, such as the merger of Siemens and Alstom.

The current discussion on competition policy in Europe mainly focuses on two aspects. On the one hand, supporters hope to help European companies grow into industry champions; on the other hand, it is also necessary to ensure that competition policy fulfills its main responsibility, that is, to protect competition rather than competitors, thereby creating a fair environment and promoting corporate innovation.

In the confrontation with tech giants, Riviera still needs to undergo scrutiny by the European Parliament before being officially appointed, including answering written questions and attending hearings held this month. If approved, she will take over the difficult task of directly confronting large technology companies.

During Vestager's tenure, a series of active antitrust enforcement actions were taken against large technology companies. For example, Google was fined three times with a total amount exceeding 8 billion euros; Apple was accused of obtaining an unfair competitive advantage through illegal tax benefits, and the European Court of Justice recently ruled in support of the European Commission's order to collect 13 billion euros in taxes from Apple; Amazon was accused of abusing the data of sellers on its platform to compete with its own products, leading to an unfair market environment; Apple, Google, and Meta were also severely criticized by Vestager for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act.

During Riviera's term, this task will not become easier. According to a report by the British law firm Smith &斐尔, the digital market has been a focus of EU competition law enforcement in recent years and has been newly regulated under the framework of the Digital Markets Act. Riviera's task is to address the challenges and dynamics of these markets (including platform economy and data-driven business models) and ensure that the European Commission takes quick and effective enforcement actions in accordance with the Act.Du Ning believes: "Under the recent leadership of the European Union, we can observe that the overall legislative trend is becoming more stringent. Whether it involves mergers and acquisitions in the aviation industry or the digital sector, laws such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation and the Digital Markets Act are pushing EU legislation in a more rigorous direction." The EU is currently attempting to regulate large technology platform companies from multiple dimensions, including antitrust, anti-unfair competition, protection of small and medium-sized enterprise interests, consumer rights protection, and product compliance. "The successive introduction of the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act also corroborates the aforementioned perspectives," he said.

Wu Han believes: "Simplistically speaking, the EU is concerned about the way technology platform companies utilize platforms and artificial intelligence, as their actions have a greater impact on society due to network effects. In terms of the structure of an intelligent society, the levels of social regulation will become increasingly numerous, such as the physical society and the virtual society, physical currency and virtual currency, etc., and the dimensions will also become increasingly rich (for example, technology ethics). Large social platforms (such as Google and Amazon, etc.) are not only seen as regulatory targets, but regulatory authorities may also use the technology and data of these platforms as tools for regulation."