DISCOURSE IN PARLIAMENT: GERMAN PARTIES & BIG TECH

Abstract

On 26 May 2023, competition law was once again a topic in the German Bundestag: The Parliament held the first reading of the planned reform of the Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB). The Bundeskartellamt, the national competition agency, is to receive extended powers – we reported. This upcoming 11th amendment is an occasion to look back at the last debates in parliament. Four students of Heinrich Heine University have done just that: they have – in a project with Prof. Dr. Heiko Beyer – looked at the debates in the Bundestag in the 19th and 20th legislative periods from a sociological perspective. They have summarised their findings for the readership of D’Kart. Here are the insights of Julius Renz, Fiene Kuhlmann, Nick Frenken and Darius Walter.