ABSTRACT
The European Union's competition rules are intended to ensure a fair and equal trading environment for businesses, while preserving opportunities for innovation, uniform standards and the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Merger control makes an important contribution to the functioning of the internal market by providing a harmonised set of rules for mergers and restructuring of enterprises and ensuring that competition is not distorted and consumers are not harmed as a result of economic concentration in the market. The aim of this paper is to highlight the necessity of applying economic theory to merger control and competition protection in the European Union and to summarise the theoretical foundations and basic principles of European Community competition law.