The official launching ceremony held at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia has marked the initiation of the two-year EU-funded Twinning project “Further Development of Protection of Competition in Serbia”, jointly implemented by the Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia and the Italian Competition Authority.

Dr Miloje Obradović, President of the Commission for Protection of Competition spoke on the importance of this project for the development of competition policy in the Republic of Serbia, in addition to Gabriella Muscolo, President of the Italian competition authority, Vesna Kovač, State Secretary at the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia, H.E. Carlo Lo Cascio, Ambassador of the Republic of Italy to Serbia, Mateja Norčič Štamcar, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Marko Jovanović, Assistant Minister of Finance for Contracting and Financing of EU Funded Programs, Marko Obradović, CPC Council member, and Alessandra Tonazzi, Director of International and European Affairs at the Italian Competition Authority.
The principal objective of this project is to provide input to the further alignment of national competition legislation with the EU acquis, its efficient enforcement and raising awareness on the competition law and policy among all relevant stakeholders in the Republic of Serbia.

The Commission for Protection of Competition is recognized as one of the parts of the Serbian administration whose work is most harmonized with the acquis communautaire and which improves its work every year, causing positive effects on the improvement of the business environment in the Republic of Serbia.

Noting that the Commission is the end-user, but not the sole project beneficiary, it is expected that the project implementation will secure considerable progress in ensuring the understanding, observance and implementation of competition rules by the courts, regulatory bodies, undertakings and their respective associations. This takes on particular significance in the context of raising capacities of the Serbian economy by strengthening market competition, which represents an important factor in the EU accession process.

This Twinning project that has been awarded to the Republic of Serbia is an important indication that the EU highly values activities implemented by the Commission for Protection of Competition in the previous years. This progress is also recognized in the European Commission’s Annual Report on Serbia 2018.

The project “Further Development of Protection of Competition in Serbia” is a part of the Twinning initiative launched by the European Commission to assist candidate countries in their efforts to strengthen their administrative and judicial capacity for the implementation of the EU acquis. The project budget is about one million euro and will be implemented over 24 months.