Competition Law and the COVID-19 Pandemic – Towards More Room for Public Interest Objectives?

The article aims at analysing activities of the European Commission and the national competition authorities of the Member States of the European Union in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. This analysis is carried out in the light of the objectives of EU competition law. The specific research question of this article is whether the competition law framework is sufficiently resilient to the current COVID-19 crisis and allows for the inclusion of public or non-economic interests, particularly with regard to the application of Article 101 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. With a view to answering this question, the temporary framework that has been adopted because of the pandemic will be assessed in the light of the framework for the application of Article 101 TFEU. Then the actions of competition authorities undertaken EU-wide will be analysed against the background of the current debate on the goals of EU competition law.