On 29 April 2025, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) published its annual communication setting out policy priorities for the current year.
This publication, which has existed since 2014, explains how the BCA selects its formal investigations and describes its strategic and sectoral priorities for competition policy.
In its communication, the BCA highlights the current challenges Belgium now faces in politics, the economy and technology, and stresses the importance of proactive protection of competition, notably in the digital sector and in relation to the green and circular transition.
In line with the priority areas identified in previous years, the BCA intends to continue its actions in the following sectors:
- food industry due to a higher risk of anticompetitive practices, abuses of dominance and abuses of economic dependency but also considering the current trend of consolidation and the challenge of sustainability;
- construction sector, which faces major challenges due to the increase of prices of raw material and is at risk of illegal agreements on reinvoicing of costs or bid rigging in public procurement ;
- health care, mainly large hospitals that remain under merger control despite the legal exemption applicable to hospitals and the pharmaceutical sector, particularly for prices determined by laboratories, competition between wholesalers and the competitive dynamic between pharmacies ;
- basic services, particularly the regulated professions, financial and banking services, energy and transport;
- digitalisation of the economy with a focus on local actors in collaboration with the regulatory authorities to identify abuses of dominance and economic dependency of local platforms and AI companies, and to apply the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in cooperation with the European Commission, digital infrastructure and telecommunications sector in the context of the roll-on of new infrastructures (i.e. optic fibres and 5G) and the improvement of quality and pricing of telecommunication services to residential and professional customers.
Identifying these priorities does not mean that complaints about competition infringements in other sectors will not be investigated, but files may be prioritised due to their strategic importance to the Belgian economy or the higher risk of distortion of competition because they concern essential good and services.
To reinforce its competition policy, the BCA will prioritise the following projects and strategic actions:
- sectorial investigations, guidelines and political directives to strengthen its detection and advocacy policy: the first general investigation of sectorial mechanisms of revision and indexation of price is planned for 2025 and the BCA is also preparing guidelines on sustainability with a focus on the food industry, digital policy and the clarification of competition rules in the context of the mobility of workers, notably non-poaching clauses;
- global strategy to protect competition by fighting bid rigging: the BCA will update its 2017 guide on bid rigging for public authorities and develop new tools to detect infringements in cooperation with the European Commission and other competition authorities via the use and analysis of data from the e-procurement platform;
- reinforcement of the legal framework and political instruments: the BCA intends to reform merger-control rules, notably the scope of the simplified procedure and the general evaluation of the normal procedure, and it is considering introducing a call-in for mergers below the notification thresholds. Furthermore, the BCA is studying the possibility of setting up a “New Competition Tool” in Belgian law in order to impose binding corrective remedies following a sectorial investigation;
- increased national and international cooperation to improve the actions of the BCA, notably at the national level with other regulatory authorities, the federal economy administration, professional federations and consumers associations, and internationally with EU bodies;
- increased visibility and accessibility among target groups.
In terms of competition policy, the BCA is ambitious and its plans to adopt guidelines and reform merger control should be closely followed since they will impact a large number of undertakings.
