Market economy principles and European integration “Constitutive principles” is of course an allusion to Walter Eucken, whose constitutive principles of competitive order are still the main pillars of our current economic constitution. Effective competition is key for a market economy and its economic performance. In turn, competition requires free price formation. Competition creates prosperity. However, competition also requires protection.
For competition to have a control function, prices must be stable. Eucken thus stressed the “primacy of monetary policy”. He also noted the importance of central rights and obligations for a competitive economy: open markets, rights to private property, freedom of contract and the principle of liability, which I have already mentioned. He defines liability as an essential regulatory policy institution.