The European Union has raised objections to the Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger, but Europe’s premier trade group has expressed its support.

The European Games Developer Federation (EGDF), a partnership of 23 national groups containing more than 2,500 businesses that employ roughly 40,000 people across 22 European countries, has put out an announcement in support of the combination, which was initially brought to attention by Xbox news guy Idle Sloth.

The EGDF expressed their endorsement of Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, favoring the effects it would have for the gaming marketplace as a whole over any limited competition concerns about the console and subscription markets. They further acknowledged that Sony possess a strong lead in the console gaming industry, leaving Microsoft a distant second.

The European Games Developer Federation’s (EDGF) statement echoes Microsoft’s own mantras that it is still substantially behind Sony and PlayStation in both titles of exclusive games and home console sales. However, the EDGF also mentioned that Microsoft has a capability to be anti-competitive by removing games form rivaling platforms, although they have previously promised not to. This is seemed to have been taken into consideration when Microsoft promised to keep Call of Duty available on other platforms for a minimum of 10 years should the merger occur.

The EGDF suggested that Microsoft would have the capability to rival Apple and Google in the mobile market, if it collaborated with Activision Blizzard King, and could possibly even beat top Chinese tech company Tencent for the title of biggest game publisher in the world.

Despite the backing of the European Game Developers Federation, Microsoft’s prospects of the merger going through remain untested. It is rumoured that the EU Commission will be announcing dissentions which Microsoft would have to work on in order to get clearance before the April 11th deadline. Additionally, the FTC lawsuit looks like it might take the matter to court, preventing the merger entirely.