Article 102 TFEU: an audio-style guide

If I were explaining Article 102 TFEU to a new colleague in Brussels, I would not begin with a definition. I would begin with the scene. This card sits in Ch.8 Competition Law. Its wider background is this: competition law protects market structure through prohibitions, enforcement and state aid control. The essential point is simple: Abuse of a dominant position in the internal market (e.g. predatory pricing, exclusionary practices).

The reason this matters is that EU history is rarely a list of isolated facts. It is a chain of choices, compromises and institutional consequences. Here, the useful nuance is: Being dominant is not illegal — abusing that dominance is. That sentence turns the card from a memory test into a piece of political and legal understanding.

A good EU official listens for the structure beneath the story. Who is acting? Which institution has the power? Which treaty, procedure or policy instrument gives the action its force? With an article, do not recite the number mechanically. Hear it as a legal doorway: it tells you who may act, by which procedure, and with what effect. That is also how EPSO distractors are built. They sound familiar, but one institutional detail is out of place.

Use Art. 102 TFEU as your bookmark. Then say the card aloud in one flowing sentence: Article 102 TFEU matters because Abuse of a dominant position in the internal market (e.g. predatory pricing, exclusionary practices). If that sentence sounds natural, you are no longer memorising a flashcard. You are learning to explain the Union as a living system.