> 6,000 vs 30 is a meaningless metric
Even if you think that, the metric of only a single american merger ever being prevented, and it happening 20 years ago, is still pretty relevant.
If the regulators in Europe have only blocked a single merger in America, ever, then European regulators are simply not relevant to the conversation, and you have already conceded that American regulators aren't doing much.
You cannot handwave away the true fact that the EU has only stopped a single American merger, one time, 20 years ago. And that this is pretty good evidence that European regulators are not doing much to prevent American mergers.
> T-Mobile just acquired Sprint
Huh. And I guess European regulators didn't do anything about that, did they? In the clear and obvious cases of geographic network effects in the industry of Telecom, which I have already stated is one of the few exceptions where regulation is definitely needed (Telecom, has huge geographic network effects. It is the same problem as internet, or electricity, or water pipes, and I have already said that network effects are the one major area that consolidation will definitely happen), we see that European regulators didn't stop such a clear an obvious thing that should have been stopped.
> 6,000 small companies merging
Well, in one of the cases of large telecoms companies, such as t-mobile/sprint we see that it wasn't blocked!
> so they'll try and suss out whether regulators would be amenable to a merger before making it public.
Well they didn't stop the clear and obvious example that you just brought up regarindg T-Mobile/sprint. Looks like European regulators are doing much of anything.
So no, European regulators are not doing much of anything at all, to prevent American companies from merging, using an example that you brought up.
> Well, they tried in the early 2010s and the DOJ filed suit is why
As I said, before, businesses that have huge geographic network effects are one of the few exceptions where there is a huge advantage to consolidation. But even IN these clear and extremely obvious cases, only sometimes will regulators take action. But sometimes they won't either.
The fact that nobody blocked the t-mobile/sprint situation is clear evidence that regulators aren't doing much to stop mergers, even in the rare and obvious cases where they should step in.