EU Commission seeks view on possible European telecoms consolidation

The European Commission recently launched a public consultation to review the EU merger guidelines, which help businesses understand how the Commission assesses the competitive impact of mergers and acquisitions.

The review will examine how the Commission should consider several critical aspects of merger assessment, with a particular focus on innovation, efficiency, resilience and the time horizons and investment intensity of competition in certain strategic sectors, including pharmaceuticals and digital markets. The consultation, which runs until 3 September, is accompanied by thematic papers addressing current challenges, particularly those posed by digitalisation and digital technologies.

These moves signal the Commission’s willingness to consider whether consolidation in certain global strategic sectors, including technology and telecommunications, would benefit competition in the Single Market, said Dr Marc Salevic, an expert in connectivity and digital infrastructures at Pinsent Masons. “With the review of the EU merger guidelines, the path could be cleared for consolidation in the telecommunications sector and the creation of so-called 'European champions’.”

Dr Benedikt Beierle, an expert in connectivity and digital infrastructures at Pinsent Masons, said the review will probably be welcomed by parts of the European telecoms sector. "Some telecommunications companies, in particular, have been pushing for changes to the merger guidelines for some time,” he said. “They argue that due to the high investment costs, larger companies are needed to enable growth and competitiveness, especially in view of global competitors and tech companies from the USA and China."

Paul Williams, competition law expert at Pinsent Masons, said “historically the Commission has assessed telecom mergers on the basis of national markets – due to regulatory barriers – which has led to industry fragmentation across the EU. The Commission now seeks to better understand how the wider global context could justify consolidation in critical infrastructures across the EU – such as telecommunications networks – without harming competition, and to what extent new or additional merger guidance is required for these industries.”

As well as seeking to heed industry demands, the Commission also appears to be responding to calls from member states to boost the bloc’s competitiveness and resilience in the face of growing technological and climatic changes and the threat of trade wars. In a recent joint article published in newspaper Le Figaro, German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and French President Emanuel Macron stated that Germany and France will advocate for the introduction of competition rules at the EU level to ensure that world-class European champions can emerge in key sectors.

The Commission first announced in early 2025 that it would review the horizontal and non-horizontal merger guidelines, which were published in 2004 and in 2008, respectively. The decision followed a report in 2024 in which Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president, highlighted the “existential threat” facing the EU unless it cannot arrest the stagnation it has seen in economic growth.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, also outlined the need for the review to address strategic sector needs and the changed defence and security environment in a mission letter (8-page / 513KB) to EU competition chief Teresa Ribera Rodríguez in December 2024.