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This paper analyses the main antitrust decisions in the agribusiness sector in Europe. First, legislation and economic principles are recalled. Then for input suppliers, farmers, manufacturers, and retailers, we give a brief presentation of the market structure and discuss the main competition concerns according to the most recent antitrust decisions. Farmers are the weakest link of the entire chain, given the degree of concentration in the upstream and downstream industries in Europe. The use of the concept of buying power could be developed by competition authorities to balance power along the agro-food chain. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

We propose an analysis of international competion where a limited number of countries decide to cooperate on exchanges of an homogeneous good. We explain the reasons why such an agreement can be sustainable only if the cartel set up an importation tarif. However, the cartellisation, even with this trade restriction, improve the surplus of outside countries. We conclude the paper by an illustration with the Common Agricultural Policy within the European Union.

Building on the empirical case of the EU-US trade dispute on hormone-treated beef an analytical framework, where consumers are imperfectly informed about the quality of imports, is used to investigate the welfare effect of trade liberalisation in the case of a credence good. Opening the domestic market to foreign products that are perceived to be of lower quality than domestic products may lead to market inefficiencies (e.g., adverse selection) and multiple equilibria, even though these products are actually safe. This may offset some of the benefits of trade liberalisation. The welfare effects of ruling against national regulatory barriers are analytically ambiguous because of information problems. More globally, the settlement of international disputes on sanitary issues should include more cost-benefit analysis, rather than relying only on scientific considerations. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Buccirossi Paolo, Marette Stéphan, Schiavina Alessandra. Les grandes décisions de la Commission européenne dans le domaine de l'alimentaire. In: Économie rurale. N°277-278, 2003. La politique de la concurrence dans l'agroalimentaire. pp. 218-221.