ABSTRACT
As the Fifteen signed the eponymous Treaty in Amsterdam on 17 June 1997, yet another battle in the struggle between advocates of industrial policy and competition policy was settled. True to form it reflected the preponderance of the forces of liberalisation. Efforts to rewrite Article 90, the Commission’s powerful anti-monopoly weapon, came to little, though upon France’s insistence a new Article 7 was written into the Treaty guaranteeing public-service provisions. Though this episode reflects an on-going contest between interventionist and free-market-oriented actors at EU level, and may provide for a degree of sanctuary for ElectricitÉ de France and Gaz de France, Article 7 came too late to save France TÉlÉcom from competition. As the previous chapter illustrated, telecommunications liberalisation has all but been achieved in the European Union, in no small part thanks to DG IV’s repeated use of Article 90, where the Commission proved far less inhibited than it did in the energy sector.
