The completion of the single European market presents a challenge to national infrastructure monopolies. Economic areas that were traditionally understood as nation-state responsibilities are being opened up to pan-European competition. The continuation of state support is now a distortion of competition in the common market. At the same time, the problem of the division of tasks between the state and the private sector in the EU is aggravated by the accession of the new member countries, which have very different degrees of privatization in their economies.

As a result of the integration processes, a new structure between public, private-regulated and private companies is to be expected, which will make the task of competition policy even more difficult.
The 9th conference of the “Wolfsburger Gespräche 2000”, which was organized in cooperation between the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, the Institute for Economic Policy of the University of Leipzig and the International Partnership (I.P.I. e.V.) in Wolfsburg, was dedicated to this topic.

The results, which continue to be topical, are now available to all interested readers in this anthology.