Improvement of cooperation between competition authorities of Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina was the key topic discussed by the said institution representatives at the TAIEX Regional Workshop held in Podgorica, in addition to the participation of a large number of experts who shared their experiences with event participants.

The workshop attendees on behalf of the Commission for Protection of Competition were Ms. Gordana Bulatović, Chief of Staff of the President of the CPC, Ms. Ivana Macanković, Advisor at the Department for Investigation of Concentration, and Ms. Olivera Bergam, Adviser at the Department for Competition Infringement.

The TAIEX Regional Workshop was organized as a part of European Commission project for strengthening Western Balkan countries’ institutional capacities. The co-organizer of the Workshop was the Agency for Protection of Competition of Montenegro.

The event was opened by the Director of the Agency for Protection of Competition of Montenegro, Mr. Miodrag Vujović, who noted that connection and interdependence of our markets clearly point to the necessity of a harmonized approach to competition policy, foremost for the investors’ sense of protection from acts that might jeopardize equality of all undertakings.

Experts presenting the EU member countries experiences in similar situations, contributed to the overall success of this Workshop, and foremost: Austrian experiences on German-speaking markets (Natalie Harsdorf Enderndorf, Austrian Federal Competition Authority), Lithuanian experiences in Baltic countries (Daumantas Grikinis, Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania), Slovak experiences in the Slovak-Czech region (Michaela Nosa, Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic), and Slovenian experiences in the Western Balkan region (Marko Stoilvoski, Slovenian Competition Protection Agency). Petra Krenz from EC Directorate-General for Competition spoke on advantages gained from functioning of the European Network for Competition. She suggested regional competition authorities to consider forming a regional center for competition, whose goal would be more efficient operating of each institution individually, but also creating interactions between expert services from Western Balkan regional competition authorities, which would improve the quality and efficiency in securing equal conditions in all markets covered by those bodies.