Book Reviews Sauter, Wolf. Competition Law and Industrial Policy in the European Union. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. lii, 251. Index. $85. Maybe the late Deng Xiaoping was right when he forecast that we Europeans would make it our task to invent such a thing as 'capitalism à la européenne'. At least this is the conclusion one may draw from a reading of Wolf Sauter's thorough analysis of the relationship between the competition and industrial policies of the European Union. According to the (still prevalent?) neo-liberal economic paradigm, competition policy and industrial policy should be seen as mutually excluding. Of course neo-liberals are clear about the answer to be given to the question of 'which of them should exclude the other': competition policy should take priority over industrial policy, just as the market should take priority over the state as regards the economic system. Sauter's analysis poses a challenge addressed to this core neo-liberal assumption. According to the author, competition policy and industrial policy, the market and the state, can be seen (to use Elster's expression) as the necessary 'nuts and bolts' of the economic system, as two pieces belonging to a common ensemble, at least in the framework of the European Community (European Union). In order to substantiate his hypothesis, Sauter proceeds along the lines of a three-tier analysis. In a first step, he examines the issue of whether the Community Constitution, as it presently stands (that is, in its Maastricht format), can be viewed as an 'Ordo-liberal Economic Constitution'. In a second step, Sauter examines the emergence as well as the nature of the Community industrial and competition policies. And in a third, sectoral level, the book analyses the question of the compatibility of both policies from the more concrete perspective of a case study on the telecommunications law and regulation of the European Community. As a result of this macro, meso and micro analysis, Sauter gives an affirmative answer to his initial inquiry: the industrial and competition policies of the Community are, in principle, compatible, since: (1) the Community Economic Constitution, though biased in a liberal sense, does not incorporate a 'neo-liberal' economic programme; (2) the Community industrial policy rather presents a market orientation and, at the same time, the Community competition policy is open-textured; (3) there is evidence of such compatibility, as the case study on telecommunications illustrates. Might one raise a minor objection to the (by all means exceptional) work we are commenting on? Perhaps the overall result could have been improved had the author taken as his point of departure not only the neo-liberal paradigm, but, more broadly, the ongoing discussion between neo-liberal and neo-Keynesian approaches to the issue. This constitutes the core of Sauter's analysis, namely, the question of compatibility between competition and industrial policy in general terms. Once that discussion had been settled, the second step could probably have been to examine what is happening as regards the relationship between these policies in the Community context. In this connection, it seems clear that one case study cannot provide sufficient evidence of the reality of such relationship, even if the telecommunications sector has an undeniable importance today. In a final step, it could have been interesting to connect the evidence extracted from the case studies with the more general discussion, and to present a number of conclusions of a normative (and not only analytical) character. Irrespective of this criticism, Sauter's work is to be welcomed since it represents a clear and leading example of the benefits that legal analyses may obtain when combined with other methodological perspectives. Though still exceptional in the European legal tradition, interdisciplinary studies break out of classical moulds when, as in Sauter's work, they are at their best. Dr Antonio Estella de Noriega Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
	© 1990-2004 European Journal of International Law All comments and suggestions should be sent to webmaster This site is part of the Academy of European Law online, a joint partnership of the Jean Monnet Center at NYU School of Law and the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute. This file was last modified: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 01:14PM