(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission cleared Friday Blackstone Group's purchase of US-based Hilton Hotels Corporation, a buyout which would create the world's biggest hotel concern.

"The Commission has concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition" in the EU area or any substantial part of it, the EU's top competition regulator said in a statement.

Private equity giant Blackstone will be adding Hilton, with more than 2,800 hotels and 480,000 rooms, to a list of hotels it has purchased over the past two years.

This will give it a total of some 600,000 rooms, of which 560,000 are wholly owned.

InterContinental Hotels, which has had the number one ranking for the past four years, on January 1 had more than 3,700 hotels and 550,000 rooms throughout the world.

It is followed in size by US chains Wyndham and Marriott.

Under the terms of an agreement announced in July, Blackstone will buy Hilton Hotels Corporation in an all-cash deal worth 26 billion dollars (19 billion euros), one of the largest such takeovers ever.

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