Call for Evidence on the Review of the Merger Guidelines

The document is a comprehensive feedback submission by the DigitalTrade4.EU consortium to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the Review of the Merger Guidelines. It advocates for modernizing the EU’s merger control framework to align with the green and digital transitions, emphasizing the integration of data-driven competition, sustainability, and resilience into merger assessments. Central to the proposal is the European Trade Indexes Registry (EUTIR), a digital trust infrastructure designed to enhance legal certainty, interoperability, and real-time market surveillance across the Single Market. The document outlines how EUTIR can support merger control through standardized data exchange, AI/ML-enabled risk monitoring, and transparent compliance tracking, while ensuring alignment with key EU regulations such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP), eIDAS 2.0, NIS2, and the AI Act. It also provides detailed use cases, governance models, and policy recommendations to strengthen competitiveness, SME inclusion, and global interoperability.