Competition or competitiveness? At the intersection of competition and industrial policy

This session focuses on industrial strategy and competition policy, more specifically how industrial strategy and geoeconomic conditions may shift policymaking away from traditional regimes (antitrust and WTO) toward a rethinking of economic fundamentals and policy frameworks.  This has already happened to some degree in the EU and the UK with the DMA and DMCCA, and with Trump’s transactional and often country-specific, industry-specific, or product-specific trade practices. The advent of generative AI has greatly complicated the picture, especially because the impact on both competition and trade remains highly speculative. The Draghi report urged aligning competition, trade and industrial policies, but no coherent effort has yet been made to this end.