rec_163

(163) It is essential that ex ante regulatory obligations should be imposed on a wholesale market only where there are one or more undertakings with significant market power, with a view to ensuring sustainable competition and where Union and national competition law remedies are not sufficient to address the problem. The Commission has drawn up guidelines at Union level in accordance with the principles of competition law for national regulatory authorities to follow in assessing whether competition is effective in a given market and in assessing significant market power. National regulatory authorities should analyse whether a given product or service market is effectively competitive in a given geographical area, which could be the whole or a part of the territory of the Member State concerned or neighbouring parts of territories of Member States considered together. An analysis of effective competition should include an analysis as to whether the market is prospectively competitive, and thus whether any lack of effective competition is durable. Those guidelines should also address the issue of newly emerging markets, where de facto the market leader is likely to have a substantial market share but should not be subjected to inappropriate obligations. The Commission should review the guidelines regularly, in particular on the occasion of a review of the existing law, taking into account the case-law of the Court of Justice, economic thinking and actual market experience and with a view to ensuring that they remain appropriate in a rapidly developing market. National regulatory authorities will need to cooperate with each other where the relevant market is found to be transnational.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-28 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.