The European Commission said it has cleared Vodafone's acquisition of Eircom's mobile operations, Eircell.
The transaction would allow Vodafone to enter the Irish mobile telephony market where it will face competition from Esat Digifone and Meteor, the commission said.
The commission's probe concluded that the transactions impact on wholesale roaming services in Ireland and the UK wouldn't raise any competition concerns, it said.
On the market for the provision of pan-European mobile phone services to large business clients, the deal will indeed add Eircell to the Vodafone group, but given the small size of the Irish market and Eircell's client base, "it will not significantly enhance Vodafone's ability to offer pan-European services", it said.
AFP