10.4.3 Price discrimination in the European Union
The recent introduction of the single currency in the euro zone has had very important implications for the practice of price discrimination in the EU. This has always existed on the basis of both customer and location, but the practice has been obscured in the past by the fact that prices were quoted in different currencies. Now that the euro is in circulation such discrimination is much more transparent, as prices in different countries are directly comparable. L’Expansion, a French magazine, conducted a survey of the euro zone in early 2001 and found that huge discrepancies existed for many products. For example, a kilo of beef cost e9.90 in Madrid, e15 in Paris, and e21 in Amsterdam; a 5-kilo pack of detergent cost e9.80 in Brussels but e24.30 in Helsinki; a packet of proprietary aspirin cost e3.70 in Athens but e12.90 in Rome and Berlin.