Final answer:
United States antitrust laws focus on consumer welfare, scrutinizing business deals that could harm consumers by increasing prices or reducing product quality. The EU also considers consumer effects but emphasizes maintaining a competitive market structure, though explicit details are not provided to confirm their primary focus categorically.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the realm of antitrust enforcement, the focus of the United States and the European Union (EU) vary somewhat. The United States tends to be more concerned with the impact of a business deal on consumers, ensuring that mergers and other activities do not lead to higher prices, reduced availability of goods or services, or lower quality of products. This approach is seen through the actions of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice, which scrutinize mergers that are likely to lessen competition and take action against anticompetitive practices such as price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market division.
In contrast, while the EU does concern itself with consumer welfare, it places a stronger emphasis on maintaining a competitive market structure. This includes addressing abuses of market dominance and ensuring that the internal market of the EU remains conducive to competition across all member states. The aforementioned goal, as per the question, suggests that the EU focuses on the competitive structure of the marketplace.
Therefore, based on the perspective offered by the United States antitrust approach focusing on consumer welfare, the answer would align more closely with the first option, although without clear-cut EU information, an unequivocal determination cannot be made.