EU competition law and policy on liberalization and economic integration: What is the experience for ASEAN?

The EU competition law and policy are the important mechanisms for creating the economic liberalization process via the protection of market competition and the enhancement of EU internal market integration. The particular example of roles of EU competition law and policy as the facilitator for the economic liberalization and for the market integration are on the liberalization of utilities sectors such as telecommunication and energy sectors. The enforcement of EU competition law and policy considerably facilitate the decrease of market barriers on trade and investment on infrastructures utilities among EU member’s countries. This thus can be the solid example for the economic region that attempt to create the free and integrated market, especially ASEAN. The experience on employing EU competition law and policy would be important platforms on which ASEAN can follow in order to create the liberalization of trade among its member’s nations as well as increase the speed of establishing single market integration, according to the set plan in 2015. Therefore, with the view to explore the role of EU competition law and policy on trade liberalization and market integration as the experience for ASEAN, the paper, in the first part, will display how the EU competition law and policy can help facilitate the market liberalization and integration of EU internal market with the focus on major infrastructure utility sectors of telecommunication and energy. In the second part of the paper, it will present the comparative analysis between existing competition law and policy between EU and ASEAN. This part will help identify what ASEAN has to develop on its competition law and policy for achieving set goals of ASEAN market liberalization and integration. In the third part of the paper, it will propose the possible frameworks for ASEAN to develop its competition law and policy according to EU’s experience both in short term and long term strategies. In the last part, the paper will present the conclusion to encourage the development of ASEAN competition law and policy which will be major mechanism for enhancement of ASEAN economic liberalization and integration.