312 Lanza, The Italian Constitutional Court Case Law on Competition Law and Free Trade © Verlag Österreich The Italian Constitutional Court Case Law on Competition Law and Free Trade within the Framework of the European Union Legal System Elisabetta M Lanza* Abstract: This paper analyzes the path paved by the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) in order to reconcile the series of its inconsistent judgments dealing with free trade, right to economic initiative, and freedom of competition. For this purpose, this article aims at in- vestigating the role of the Italian Constitutional Court in the ‘constitutionalization’ of free trade and freedom of competition and at assessing the relationship between European Union policies and the Constitutional Court interpretation thereof. The last decade demonstrates, on the one hand, that the European Union law has influ- enced the domestic case law and, on the other hand, that, in turn, the European Union legal system has been ‘constitutionalized’ through the introduction of social and constitu- tional principles deriving from the Member States’ Constitutions. Keywords: Free trade, Competition, Italian Constitutional Court, European Union I. European Integration as Instrument of Emancipation from Planned Economy The European Communities legal system deeply influenced the Italian transition from a set of formal statements on freedom of economic initiative into actual and concrete implementation of free trade and competition measures. The evolution of the Italian ‘Economic Constitution’ has been the result of a very slow and difficult process, starting from the application of the European Communities Trea- ties. The principle of competition law introduced by the European Communities reflects the interest in the market economy, freedom of exploitation of resources, and also con- sumer welfare. Such interest for competition issues was not only consistent with the pursuit of European unification through the establishment of a common market, but also reflected the thought of the ordoliberal school of Freiburg. * Officer of the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM – Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mer- cato) and PhD in Constitutional law, University of Ferrara, Italy. The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author and they do not reflect in any way those of the Institution to which she is affiliated. The author wishes to thank Michela Angeli, Francesco Iodice and Paola Sfasciotti for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this essay. A shorter version of this paper has been presented to the IX World Congress of the International Association of Constitutional Law (‘Constitutional change: Global and Local’ – Workshop on ‘Constitutional studies of free trade and political economy’) Oslo, June 2014. Email: elisabetta.lanza@agcm.it