IntroductionOn 18 October 2007, EU leaders agreed the final text of the new EU Reform Treaty at the Lisbon Summit. After two years of stalemate, all 27 member states agree to the new treaty, although some political issues still remain to be resolved. The expected date for ratification will be June 2009 (EurActiv, 2007b). Although the Reform Treaty has been praised by most European leaders, it also faces criticism (EurActiv, 2007c). On the one hand, critics criticize the hasty compromise on "last minute problems", for example Italy's dissatisfaction with the redistribution of European Parliament seats in the Treaty or Poland, which called for further changes to the voting rules bloc (International Herald Trib-une, 2007). On the other hand, critics argue that the new EU Reform Treaty could be seen as “the same old EU Constitution in a different package” (The Scotsman, 2007). Of course, in addition to the elements that are retained or eliminated, there are new elements determined in the new Reform Treaty, so it is obvious that there are differences compared to the old EU Constitution. But what effect will these differences and changes have on business? How significant are they? Stephen Mulvey describes the critical uncertainty regarding the new Reform Treaty and its amendments as follows: The question here is whether the essential qualities which made the constitution a constitution have been removed, or whether the things which have been changed are mere details . . (Mulvey, 2007) This report will look more closely at the possible effects of the new EU Reform Treaty on competition and the importance of competition as part of the internal market. Competition and possible effects of the EU Reform Treaty After the publication of points of the new EU Reform Treaty, several questions may have arisen due to France's request to omit a reference to “free and undistorted competition”. French President Nicolas Sarkozy argued that competition is not an end in itself and that this reference should not be seen as an EU objective. As an agreed consequence, it was moved to a protocol (EurActiv, 2007b). France's fear of a free market in Europe was one of the main reasons for the rejection of the Constitution in 2005. Critics feared that this Treaty change could influence the European Competition Commission (Olson, 2007). Jerome Chauvin of the pressure group Business Europe says that this change “is an important aspect of the internal market and we fear it will be eliminated” (Ritson, 2007).