As part of ongoing co-operation between the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, the Competition Protection Bill was today presented at the National Assembly. Such a manner of presenting legislation aims at acquainting journalists in more detail with legislation to enter Assembly procedure.

The Bill was presented by the Minister of Trade, Tourism and Services, Bojan Dimitrijevic, on behalf of the proposer, the Government of the Republic of Serbia. The director of the Free Market Centre, Miroslav Prokopijevic, as well as several deputies, also took part in the discussion.

Mr Dimitrijevic said that he was hoping that the Bill would be on the agenda of the next extraordinary sitting of the National Assembly, to be held in late August, underlining that the Bill was part of the action plan of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and one of the most important systemic laws that have to be adopted as a pre-condition to the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union. Adopting the Competition Protection Act would be fully justified due to the large number of monopolies in our market, and also because there are no institutions at this time that entities could approach. The existing anti-monopoly legislation is unclear and badly defined, and legislation is needed to regulate the field of competition protection. The most important new solution introduced by the Bill is an independent Competition Protection Commission, which would report to the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia at least once each year. The Commission will be tasked with protecting competition in the market, suppressing monopolies, and acting against companies proven to abuse their position in the market. The drafting of the Bill took almost three years; it is entirely in harmony with EU regulations, Mr Dimitrijevic concluded.

Further discussion raised comments on the disharmony between EU standards and the Bill, as well as on the fact that provisions on providing government assistance had been left out. Ministry officials explained that government assistance provisions had been left out of the Bill as this field is to be regulated by another piece of legislation (currently being drafted by the Ministry of Finance), and also because this is to appear in several other laws, including the Trade Act. With respect to harmonisation with EU law, it was underlined that the Bill had been drafted according to European Commission recommendations, and that European experts were satisfied with it. It was also stressed that the Commission is to receive budget funding only for the first year of its existence, that it should be formed within two months from the date of adoption of the law, and that it should commence its activities by the end of the year.