Leon Brittan

Brittan helped secure the European Community's 1989 merger-control regulation after years of negotiation and earlier work by other commissioners. As competition commissioner he then oversaw its use, including the 1991 decision prohibiting the proposed ATR/de Havilland transaction. The important institutional change was a Community-level process for qualifying mergers. Member states, Commission staff and later court scrutiny remained central; it was not a personal power to block any deal he disliked.