Crisis Opportunism: Germany’s Turn to Antitrust Without Limits
Geopolitical shocks rarely just move markets. They move policy—and not always in good ways.
Fuel prices are climbing sharply across Europe following military escalation in the Middle East and disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The political demand for “something to be done” can be nearly irresistible.
In Germany, several major political groups have answered that demand with the “Kraftstoffmaßnahmenpaket,” or “Fuel Market Intervention Package.” Lawmakers filed the draft legislation March 17, and the lower house of the Bundestag has already approved it. The government is targeting April 1 for entry into force.
The speed alone should raise concern.
The bill’s explanatory memorandum admits, with unusual candor: “No substantive contributions from third parties were considered in drafting.” Policymakers considered no alternative approaches. The process ran from filing to final vote in nine days. There was no consultation. No meaningful impact assessment. The only estimate—a back-of-the-envelope calculation—suggests compliance costs (“Erfüllungsaufwand”) “should not exceed” €200,000 for the State.
As for costs to businesses and citizens, the bill claims the “draft law will not create any compliance costs.” That assertion is plainly wrong to anyone familiar with price controls or similar interventions. For legislation that restructures a core instrument of German competition enforcement, the lack of scrutiny is hard to defend.
Crisis conditions create political urgency. But, as Roberta Roman0 suggests, “legislating in the immediate aftermath of a public scandal or crisis is a formula for poor public policymaking.”
The procedural critique, though valid, is not the most interesting one.
The more consequential problem lies in what the Kraftstoffmaßnahmenpaket does to the law—specifically, to Section 32f of the Act Against Restraints of Competition (ARC), the market-investigation tool introduced through the 11th ARC Amendment in 2023.
The bill frames its changes as temporary responses to a fuel crisis. In fact, they are not limited to the fuel sector. They apply across all markets. And what the bill describes as a procedural simplification turns out, on closer inspection, to be something quite different: a substantive expansion of state authority over lawful commercial conduct, one that stretches well beyond what competition policy can coherently justify.