At its third sitting, held on 13 November, the Committee on Trade and Tourism discussed the independence of operation of the Commission for the Protection of Competition.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairman, Nebojsa Stefanovic, and was attended by Dragan Penezic, Assistant Minister of Trade and Services, Dijana Markovic- Bajalovic, President of the Council of the Commission for the Protection of Competition and members of the Council of the Commission.

President of the Council of the Commission for the Protection of Competition, Dijana Markovic-Bajalovic, briefed the Committee members on the events in the previous period which she believes exert pressure on the activities of the Council of the Commission for the Protection of Competition. She repeated the data of the Commission’s Report which was rejected by the Committee on Trade and Tourism at the previous sitting, stressing her belief that the public appearances of certain representatives of executive power put a kind of pressure on the Commission’s activities. At the request of the Committee members, the members of the Council of the Commission for the Protection of Competition expressed their view on the existence of pressure on the independence of the Commission’s activities individually.

Assistant Minister of Trade and Services, Dragan Penezic, pointed out that the Ministry and the Commission are drafting a Bill amending and modifying the Law on the Protection of Competition so as to improve the existing law.

In the discussion on the instances of pressure, threats and influence on the independence of operation of the Commission for the Protection of Competition, the Committee members voiced various opinions and concluded that representatives of executive government organs did not exert pressure on the members of the Council of the Commission thus endangering its independence of operation.