Since Hungary's accession to the European Union, the Community competition law is directly applicable to Hungarian undertakings as well. Furthermore, the Hungarian Competition Authority, the GVH and the Hungarian courts must apply the Community competition law in each case in which they would apply (or actually apply in parallel) national competition law to all the restrictive agreements and abuses of a dominant position that may affect trade between Member States. The effect on trade between Member States is a complex notion, the substance of which is that the conduct may have an influence, direct or indirect, actual or potential, on the pattern of trade between Member States. The practice concerned can have effects on cross-border activities (e.g. on agreements relating to import or export activities), or it can modify the competitive structure inside the Community (e.g. agreements closing the national market, thus restricting the competition coming from abroad, or conducts that abuse a dominant position).

In the field of the authorisation of concentrations of undertakings, depending on the result of a comparison of the turnover of the undertakings affected with a threshold and on the number of the Member States concerned, the authorisation of a transaction falls within the competence either of the European Commission or of a national competition authority, however the referral of concentrations between the Commission and the national competition authorities is possible under certain circumstances in both directions.

The efficiency and uniformity of law enforcement are assisted by the co-operation within the European Competition Network (ECN), which consists of the European Commission, as the Community competition authority and the competition authorities of the Member States.

As far as a uniform European consumer protection law and the framework for its application are concerned, the preparation of them is subject of an ongoing legislative process.

As to the sources of the law of the European Union we recommend the following two websites:

  • DG COMP (for competition policy related legislation)

  • EUR-Lex (for Community legislation in general)