The European Commission has published draft Regulations and Guidelines for the assessment of co-operation agreements between competitors, so called horizontal co-operation agreements. The objective of these proposals is to update and further clarify the application of competition rules in this area and to ensure their continuing relevance in the changing economy of today. Interested parties can submit comments until 25 June 2010. After the public consultation and taking full account of stakeholder input, the Commission will adopt final texts at the end of this year.