The European Competition Network today published its report on national competition authorities’ activities in the food supply chain. Over the past years, and in particular as Europe struggled with recession, national competition authorities have stepped up their activities to enhance competition in the food sector. These include inter alia, sector inquiries, market studies and a number of enforcement cases. Relations between retailers and their suppliers have also been subject to higher scrutiny in a number of Member States.

“We are currently analysing this report, which provides a very comprehensive overview of the work done in this area and we are pleased to see that, at first glance, it takes a holistic perspective on the supply chain,” commented Christian Verschueren, EuroCommerce Director-General.

This report provides an important contribution to the work under way in the High Level Forum on a better functioning food supply chain with a view to dealing with unfair trading practices in the food supply chain. A multi-stakeholder dialogue was established in 2011 to discuss this issue. It presented a set of principles of good practice in vertical relations in November 2011 and, by June 2012, will propose a framework to bring those principles to the market across Europe.

-ENDS-

For further information, please contact:

Marjolein Raes

Director, Advocacy & Communications

Tel: +32 2 737 05 99

raes@eurocommerce.be

EuroCommerce and the commerce sector

EuroCommerce represents the retail, wholesale and international trade sectors in Europe. Its membership includes commerce federations and companies in 31 European countries. Commerce plays a unique role in the European economy, acting as the link between manufacturers and the nearly 500 million consumers across Europe over a billion times a day. It is a dynamic and labour-intensive sector, generating 11% of the EU’s GDP. Over 95% of the 6 million companies in commerce are small and medium-sized enterprises. The sector is a major source of employment creation: 31 million Europeans work in commerce. It also supports millions of dependent jobs throughout the supply chain from small local suppliers to international businesses.