Three experts reflect on some of the trends that defined European competition in 2025.
Android Auto and Platform Interoperability
Alessia D’Amico, Utrecht University
The Android Auto case (C-233/23) defined competition law in the European Union in 2025 by providing new clarity on the interoperability obligations of digital platforms. The case originated in Google refusing Enel X’s request to allow its electric-vehicle charging app to interoperate with Android Auto. While Google had provided interoperability solutions for other categories of apps, only Google’s own map service was available on Android Auto. Enel X complained to the Italian competition authority, arguing that the refusal constituted an exclusionary abuse under competition law. The authority agreed and ordered Google to provide access.
Upon appeal, the Italian court referred questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), including whether the Bronner test applied to this refusal to deal. Under Bronner, for a refusal to be abusive, access to the input needs to be “indispensable” for competitors to operate on the downstream market. This high threshold is considered necessary to safeguard undertakings’ incentives to invest. The ECJ distinguished Android Auto from Bronner, arguing that Android Auto was designed from the outset as a platform interoperating with third-party apps, and Google had already allowed access to other parties. Since openness is a defining feature of digital ecosystems, and third-party participation adds value to a platform, a duty to deal in these cases was not deemed to undermine investment incentives. Hence, the ECJ concluded that an abuse could be found “even though that platform is not indispensable for the commercial operation of that app on a downstream market, but is such as to make that app more attractive to consumers.”
Android Auto shapes the interoperability obligations placed on digital platforms by establishing that platforms that are designed to work with complementary apps cannot, without a valid justifications, refuse access to third parties. In order to justify a refusal, platforms need to show that providing access would compromise security or integrity or is technically impossible. Difficulties in developing new templates, as was the case in this instance, justify only a reasonable delay, not a refusal, and platforms may request a fair financial contribution for it. This case reinforces an approach that was already developed under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), treating interoperability as an essential dimension of competition in platform ecosystems.
Competition in Central and Eastern Europe
Jasminka Pecotic Kaufman, European University Institute and University of Zagreb
The European Union has always been the sum of its parts. When it comes to enforcing antitrust rules, both the European Commission and national competition authorities (NCAs) play vital roles within a decentralized system of enforcement implemented in 2004. Typically, the academic and media focus remains on supranational developments, where drama and excitement have been plentiful. One only needs to mention the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the transatlantic back-and-forth between the EU and United States, the Draghi Report on European competitiveness, and the ongoing dilemma between competition and competitiveness.
The well-earned spotlight on these high-flying issues has meant that developments at the national level are often undeservedly neglected. Since their “EU homecoming,” largely in the 2000s (Croatia joined later in 2013), the post-socialist EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have provided an exciting setting to observe the in vivo experiment of societal and economic transformation brought about by democratization and the embrace of market economy principles.
Was this a straightforward process? By no means. Enforcing rules aimed at protecting market competition caused headaches for politicians who viewed independent NCAs as a challenge to the government’s primacy in regulating economic life. In some countries more than others, this challenged the state’s ability to rely on the lingering societal acceptance of the “nanny-state” model—a concept deeply rooted in the post-socialist legacy.
However, the region is not a monolith. Experiences in building institutional capacity, developing enforcement traditions, and instilling a “competition culture” are diverse.
What did 2025 bring? While this text is not the place for an extensive elaboration of long-term processes and their underlying causes, I would like to highlight one striking tension revealed by last year’s developments: the friction between the two opposite poles of competition system maturity that eventually comes full circle.
At one end of the spectrum, we observe the never-ending search for an optimal enforcement model. In 2025, after years of delay and a fine from the EU Court of Justice for failing to transpose the ECN+ Directive, Estonia finally overhauled its competition enforcement system. The country moved away from its peculiar criminal law model, which resulted in a near-total absence of cartel fines, and introduced a dual administrative/misdemeanor enforcement system (a model Croatia notably abandoned in 2009 due to its ineffectiveness).
Likewise, 2025 brought substantial reform of competition legislation in Bulgaria, which is expected to add “teeth” and agility to the NCA. This includes newly acquired access to traffic data from electronic communications service providers for cartel investigations without prior judicial approval: a move that has raised concerns regarding its compatibility with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Similar legislative overhauls have been implemented in other CEE countries, most recently in Slovenia, but not all have served as a basis for more active antitrust enforcement.
At the other end of the spectrum, another legislative overhaul took place in 2025, this time in Lithuania. However, the context here is different. Lithuania possesses one of the strongest NCAs in the region, particularly regarding cartel enforcement. Yet, the new rules will halve the base amount of fines for antitrust infringers, limiting the authority’s ability to impose deterrent sanctions. Additionally, a “consultative” role has been forced upon the NCA, requiring it to provide assistance to businesses and public administration entities. This could be interpreted as a reflex to neutralize robust competition law enforcement by introducing “preventive” health checks.
The dramatic character of competition policy mentioned at the outset is once again confirmed by these CEE examples. Will 2026 disappoint?
Pro-democratic European Antitrust
Maciej Bernatt, University of Warsaw
One of the most influential debates in European competition law and complementary regimes—particularly the Digital Markets Act (DMA)—concerns the role of these laws not only in preserving market competition but also in safeguarding democracy. Academics across Europe address this issue in both digital and traditional markets, especially amid growing concentration of political and economic power resulting from democratic backsliding. A key question is how direct is competition law’s role in this respect and whether democracy-specific theories of harm could be developed.
The European Commission’s enforcement under Article 102 TFEU in 2025 is relevant here. So far, it aligns with the indirect-role scenario and echoes the General Court’s 2022 judgment in Google Android, which stated that consumer interests harmed by anticompetitive practices are not only consistent with competition on the merits but are “also necessary in order to ensure plurality in a democratic society.” Indeed, in Europe, special attention is attached to pluralism as a constitutional value.
The Commission’s 2025 decision in Google AdTech can be seen in its light. While it directly concerns Google self-preferencing its own service (i.e. ad exchange: AdX) in violation of Article 102 TFEU, indirectly it is about financial viability of media outlets in Europe, which depend on advertisement as a source of revenue. Indeed, the Commission concluded that Google’s practice intentionally gave AdX a competitive advantage and may have foreclosed ad exchanges competing with AdX. According to the Commission, this has reinforced AdX’s central role in the ad tech supply chain as well as Google’s ability to charge a high fee for its service. The case also signals the Commission’s readiness to adopt structural rather than merely behavioral remedies.
A similar approach has been unfolding under the DMA. In November, the Commission started investigating whether Google applies fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers’ websites on Google Search. The Commission believes that Google is demoting news media and other publishers’ websites and content in Google Search results, and by doing so limits the publishers’ opportunity to monetize their websites and content. Indeed, Commissioner Teresa Ribera explained that the Commission’s investigation aims to “ensure that news publishers are not losing out on important revenues at a difficult time for the industry”.
While in both cases the protection of media pluralism as a democratic value could be seen as an incidental by-product of protecting competition, in practice the addressed harm extends beyond pure competition concerns. And as the statement suggests, this is intentional. The enforcement is aimed at upholding the viability of media in Europe as a key element of democracy.Against this backdrop, one key question for 2026 is whether competition agencies in Europe will begin pursuing cases based on theories of harm directly related to democracy, for example concerning the reduction in consumer access to independent and diverse news sources as a metric for the measurement of negative effects on media pluralism. The recent Dutch competition conditional clearance of DPG Media’s acquisition of RTL Nederland, which involved the consultation with academics, and the democracy-related input provided as part of the review process of EU merger guidelines suggest that this is not something unthinkable. Media markets are natural candidates for testing such theories of harm and developing a framework of adequate remedies, which could then be applied to other markets. In this context, it is necessary to emphasize that opening competition law to democracy-related theories of harm must be implemented within a rule-of-law framework that protects against the against the instrumentalization of competition law by partisan politics.
Authors’ Disclosures: The authors report no conflicts of interest. You can read our disclosure policy here.
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.
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