Brussels opens investigation into Orange-MásMóvil merger

The European Commission has decided that it will carry out an in-depth investigation into the merger between Orange and MásMóvil due to concerns that it could reduce competition in the retail provision of broadband services, mobile and landlines and the offer of multiple service packages in Spain.

The EU wants to study in depth the competition issues that the merger between the French telecommunications operator Orange and the Spanish company MásMóvil could cause, which would give rise to it becoming the leading operator in Spain for fixed and mobile broadband clients.

Currently there are four mobile phone network operators present in Spain: Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and MásMóvil.

There are also several virtual operators that use the infrastructure of the above four to offer mobile and landline telecommunication services to their customers.