On the occasion of World Competition Day, the Commission for Protection of Competition of Serbia organised an international conference “Challenges in the implementation of competition policy on the EU path.”
The conference consisted of two panels aimed at exchanging experience of relations between national competition authorities and the European Commission, the degree of their operational and financial independence, the importance of capacity strengthening and the forms of cooperation in handling cases that are becoming increasingly regional and even international in nature.
Steffen Hudolin of the EU Delegation to Serbia said that thanks to support from the EU, Serbia had made great progress in the area of competition, adding that Serbian regulations in that area were largely aligned with the EU law. The President of the Commission Miloje Obradovic announced that the new law on competition would enable a more efficient work of the Commission and facilitate competition policy enforcement in Serbia. “Enforcement of the current Law on Protection of Competition showed that there is room for normative improvements. In this context, the Commission has already come up with ideas aimed at formulating and introducing individual institutes as soon as possible, especially the institutes which have previously been loosely regulated and those that were completely left out by the current Law.“ He said he believed there was considerable room for improvement of the Commission’s institutional capacities, particularly in the light of the new EC Directive. “The Commission has performed a thorough analysis of the proposal for a new directive which the European Commission had drafted and submitted to the European Parliament for adoption. The directive in question envisages new rules and tools in order to make existing competition authorities in the European Union more efficient.“ President of the Parliamentary Committee on the economy, regional development, trade, tourism and energy Snezana B. Petrovic said that the Commission for Protection of Competition was on the right track to achieve the same degree of respectability the competition authorities in the EU have been building for decades. This is confirmed by the fact that Serbia’s efforts in this regard have been assessed positively by the EC in its Annual Report for two consecutive years and during the meetings of the Subcommittee on Internal Market and Competition held in Brussels, Petrovic said.
This year, the Commission for Protection of Competition decided to introduce an honourable guest host format. On this occasion the guest host was the Romanian Competition Council.
Bogdan Chiritoiu, the President of the Romanian Competition Council, talked about the Council’s 20-year experience and announced intensification of cooperation with the Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition. The Conference’s panel discussions gathered more than 150 guests and were facilitated by Nicholas Banasevic of the European Commission’s DG Competition, Mladen Cerovac the President of the Croatian Competition Council, Dragan Lončar a Professor at the Faculty of Economy in Belgrade, Gianluca Sepe the Head of Sector – EU legislation, Italian Competition Authority and Cedomir Radojcic and Veljko Milutinovic, CPC Council members. The conference was participated in by numerous officials from all public institutions, regulatory authorities and scientific institutions, the representatives of chambers of commerce and industry, law firms and business associations as well as the representatives of competition authorities of all countries in the region.
