{"id":901177,"date":"2026-04-17T18:44:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/901177\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:44:22","slug":"new-merger-rules-are-no-free-ride-for-european-champions-says-teresa-ribera-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/901177\/","title":{"rendered":"New merger rules are no free ride for European champions, says Teresa Ribera \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ribera, who as executive vice president ranks second to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, enforces antitrust policy across the 27-nation bloc. Her comments contrast with her boss&#8217; calls to nurture <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-resilience-mergers-competition-concerns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">European business \u201cchampions\u201d<\/a> that can hold their own against China\u2019s world-beating exporters and U.S. tech titans.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish commissioner said that the industrial restructuring of sectors like telecoms was impeded by the fragmentation of national markets, and not the bloc&#8217;s merger rules.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt needs to be proven that there are benefits we will be enjoying in the time to come. And not just: I want to be big,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Ribera also issued a pointed warning to member countries tempted to use the guidelines\u2019 new resilience and security exceptions to pick domestic winners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also invite national competition authorities and national governments to make a very self-restrained understanding of what this could mean,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Her remarks follow Italy\u2019s intervention in Milan-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/how-failed-italian-bank-merger-exposed-eu-unicredit-banco-bpm\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UniCredit\u2019s bid for local rival Banco BPM<\/a>, and the conditions set by the Spanish government on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/banking-merger-deal-sabadell-catalonia-spain-politics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBVA\u2019s attempts to acquire Sabadell<\/a>. Both triggered Commission legal proceedings on the grounds that the respective governments were breaching EU rules on the freedom of establishment and movement of capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ribera, who as executive vice president ranks second to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, enforces antitrust policy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[7155,1395,2437,1442,2000,299,5187,1699,806,1302,2199,35853,2441,28458,5338,8720,3695,11586,7162,49,1220],"class_list":["post-901177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-antitrust","tag-china","tag-companies","tag-competition","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-industry","tag-innovation","tag-italy","tag-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva","tag-markets","tag-mergers","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-resilience","tag-sustainability","tag-telecoms","tag-teresa-ribera","tag-united-states","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}