The socio-legal and critical potential of EU economic law

This article discusses why EU economic (competition and internal market) law is hospitable to and can be enriched by socio-legal and critical insights about the instability of the economic/non-economic distinction, the unavoidable plurality of market arrangements as shaped by legal regulation, as well as the distributive effects of the said arrangements. The proneness of EU economic law to critical insights can be ascribed to: its subject matter, as law in this area maps upon everyday market experiences; the casuistic development of EU law; the wide scope of EU economic law, which interferes with arrangements understood as non-economic; the non-outcome-determinative character of EU law. Through discussion of two CJEU decisions - a competition decision dealing with selective distribution (Coty) and an internal market decision on the regulation of AirBnb (Cali Apartments) - I illustrate how more explicit deployments of socio-legal and critical approaches can enrich EU economic law and specifically its teaching.