The “State” of the Market
Rome 8-9 January 2027
Industrial policy, multi-annual planning, public enterprises, and support for strategic sectors: these concepts have returned to the forefront in recent years. According to the OECD, between 2000 and 2023, the number of public enterprises among the world’s 500 largest companies by revenue nearly quadrupled (from 34 to 126). These large enterprises, in Italy as elsewhere, have played a decisive role during critical moments: the pandemic, the energy crisis, and the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Competition with economies in which the State directly controls the means of production – primarily China, where formally private companies operate in close alignment with the government’s strategic objectives – forces liberal democracies to question whether they can afford to remain neutral towards market structures. It is not just a matter of efficiency, but also of security and control over critical infrastructure: these needs lead States to rely on public enterprises in sectors considered strategic, such as energy, communications networks, digital services, and defense. The risk, however, is that competition with undemocratic regimes becomes an excuse for market distortions, human rights violations, and mismanagement, rather than a driving force for building more resilient models. A comparative perspective is essential here: from Norwegian sovereign wealth funds to French state holdings, to the hybrid models of Central and Eastern Europe, the solutions adopted vary greatly. Competition also centers on critical raw materials and rare earth elements, which are indispensable for the digital and energy transitions and are currently heavily concentrated in just a few countries.
Partly similar factors are leading to increased regulation of certain markets and to subjecting categories of private companies to rules inspired by public law: from the protection of national strategic interests to limitations on foreign investment, from corporate compliance to cybersecurity. The range of public interests that inform a company’s legal status is expanding: consider, for example, rules on environmental protection, social responsibility, and the safety and well-being of workers. The law imposes organizational constraints on companies, whose market power is subject to ever-increasing oversight. The amendment to Article 41 of the Italian Constitution, with the introduction of “environmental objectives,” can be read in this light. Corporate criminal law is playing an increasingly important role: corporate liability, environmental crimes, and corruption in relations between businesses and the public administration now constitute a criminal legal framework for businesses, which interacts, sometimes in an uncoordinated manner, with administrative and civil law frameworks. In addition, public authorities are striving, with varying degrees of success, to stimulate innovation in private enterprises.
The recognition of the benefits of competition goes hand in hand with an awareness of the need to correct the functioning of markets, all the more so in the fastest-growing sectors, which are dominated by a few very large operators and where the need to protect both consumers and workers takes on new dimensions. The powerlessness or inaction of the legislature is sometimes offset by administrative and judicial authorities. But it is clear that in some sectors, the issue of the relationship between the national and supranational level arises with particular force, an issue on which international law has yet to provide satisfactory answers. The massive fines imposed by the European Commission on Google, Meta, and Apple, which have been challenged before European Courts and rejected by the United States as protectionist measures, clearly illustrate the tension between regulatory sovereignty and global dynamics. Equally revealing is the phenomenon of regulatory arbitrage: companies that choose their registered office, structure their supply chains, or locate their data based on the most favorable regulatory regime, thereby eroding the effectiveness of any national or even regional regulations.
Europe has not shied away from attempting to respond to the problem, but its response has taken an unprecedented form. The 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act has triggered a global race for state aid. In the EU, the Commission has authorized over 670 billion euros in extraordinary aid. The Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act also mark a paradigm shift: no longer just ex post enforcement against abuses, but ex ante regulation of the behaviour of large digital operators. It is a model that the rest of the world is watching with interest, and one that China has adopted with its own tools to regulate its own platforms. The convergence of regulatory outcomes across opposing political contexts raises fundamental questions: can the market power of digital giants truly be reined in, and under what conditions? Public and private investments in artificial intelligence are exacerbating dependence on a handful of global operators and on highly energy-intensive computing, data, and semiconductor supply chains, raising questions about the environmental sustainability of these choices.
What role does the growing need to ensure the “reliability” of “global supply chains”, which are increasingly at risk from the possibility of “external control,” whether voluntary or criminal, play in this context? Given the geopolitical situation, once again dominated by the winds of war, what global (international, European, regional) tools can be envisaged to guarantee “trusted technologies”? What will become of the global alliances that are currently in crisis and that, originally formed on a military basis, areas now increasingly required to transform into technological and industrial alliances?
These developments pose major challenges for legal scholarship, concerning the relationship between public authorities – in their various territorial forms – and the market, the forms of public enterprises, and the related economic policy choices. In the current political and economic context, when is public economic initiative justified? How can we prevent the distortions that have often led to its abuse? How can the push toward European champions in strategic sectors, explicitly called for in the 2024 Draghi Report, be reconciled with EU competition law, which is built on opposing premises? Does European state aid law still make sense? How can the preference granted to national or European companies in strategic sectors be reconciled with international trade law, or what remains of it today?
What challenges arise, and what new frontiers open up for the founding principles of the constitutional theory of the contemporary state, such as the rule of law, the principle of legality, and the separation of powers?
Another issue concerns the freedom of economic initiative and its relationship to other constitutional values and fundamental rights, particularly those of vulnerable groups. What are the most effective methods for protecting workers in expanding sectors that fall outside the scope of traditional labour relations regulations? What tools, and what level of regulation, are needed to protect consumers from global companies that often defy national legislatures? What is the role of independent regulators, and what is the role of judges, constitutional and ordinary, European and national, in balancing economic and non-economic interests?
The 7th conference of the Italian chapter of ICON-S will be dedicated to the evolution of the dynamics between the state and the market. We encourage reflection on, but not limited to, the following topics:
- The actors and instruments of economic policy
- The objectives and forms of public economic initiative
- The levels of governance in public enterprises
- Freedom of economic initiative, its limits, and the functionalization of enterprises
- The protection of labour and vulnerable groups in the new digital economy and the green transition
- The role of judges in correcting market dynamics
- International economic law and the regulatory sovereignty of States
- Criminal law as a tool for corporate governance
- Comparative models of public intervention in the economy: convergences and divergences
- Geopolitics and industrial policy: the State as a strategic actor
- Artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure, and energy consumption: industrial policies and regulation
- The European model of digital regulation: DMA, DSA, and beyond
Submission of Proposals
To participate in the Call, you are invited to submit an abstract, in Italian or English, for a fully formed panel (maximum 1,000 words) by 30 September, 2026, by filling out the form available online at https://www.icons-italia.it/modulo-di-invio-proposte-submission-form/.
Proposals for individual papers will not be accepted.
Panels must include at least 4 and no more than 5 participants, including the chair or discussant, in order to make efficient use of the conference rooms and the time available. Panels are required to ensure gender balance: failure to do so will result in exclusion. When submitting a proposal, we encourage participants to ensure that the composition of the panels reflects diversity in terms of geographic origin, institutional affiliation, and discipline, in order to foster dialogue and exchange of ideas and perspectives as much as possible.
Individual presentations and panels may take place in Italian or English. It is not required to submit the final text of the presentations.
To allow for the widest possible participation, a limit on the number of panel appearances is in place also this year: each participant may take part in a maximum of two panels (either as the sole presenter or as a co-presenter) and may participate in one additional panel exclusively as a chair.
Please be advised that attendance at the conference will be exclusively in person, and remote participation will not be possible.
Selection
Participants will be notified of the selection results by 30 November, 2026.
For those who wish, the final versions of the papers may be published—subject to passing the relevant evaluation process—in Diritto pubblico, Quaderni costituzionali, Rivista trimestrale di
diritto pubblico, Istituzioni del Federalismo, the Forum dei Quaderni costituzionali, the IRPA Working Papers series, and the Italian Journal of Public Law.
For information: 2027@icon-s.it
To download the full text of the Call for Panels click here.