Concurrence effective ou concurrence efficace ?. L'ordre concurrentiel en trompe-l'œil

The Court of Justice, when implementing by its case-law the EC Treaty?s objective of establishing a system of undistorted competition has developed a concept of workable competition, which, in its French authentic language, is expressed as ?concurrence efficace?. By this the Court does not mean to require ?une concurrence effective? or, in English, the existence or the establishment of ?actual competition?. Rather the Court means to imply by its terminology a certain version of ?workable? competition in the sense that market actors should always be exposed to some realistic competitive threat. This is a more modest approach than that which is proposed by those who favor a ?constitutionalist? interpretation of the objective that competition be not distorted in the Internal Market. Still, it is a legal concept, and it may be a demanding one. The article explores the ways it is actually put in practice by a competition policy which heavily relies on the interaction, and also the negotiation between public authorities and market participants.