The experts from the French Competition Authority, Autorité de la concurrence, have held a two-day seminar designed to advance the efficiency of competition policy enforcement in Serbia via the exchange of experiences with peers from the Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia and representatives of other institutions interested in the area of competition law and policy.This seminar was organized by the Ministry of European Integration of the Republic of Serbia and the Embassy of the Republic of France in Belgrade, in line with the needs of the Commission.

In opening the event, Dr. Veljko Milutinović, member of the Council of the Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia, has welcomed the seminar participants.
In its address, Dr. Milutinović has underlined that “the Commission, after twelve years of operations, has gained a significant experience and its staff members have already accumulated a great body of knowledge, thus making it increasingly less needed to be educated and progressively more important to provide guidance to others. This, nevertheless, does not reduce the importance of such seminars. On the contrary, the transition to an interactive phase, which is a phase of an active exchange of knowledge and experiences, marks an important milestone for the Commission. In that respect, meetings of this kind are of vital importance.”

The lecturers from the French Competition Authority, An Krencer, Eliezer Garcia-Rosado and Marianne Kombalduire, have presented the new practical experiences of the France’s national competition regulator to the representatives of the Commission for Protection of Competition and the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications. This year’s topics related to the practical aspects of the relief or reduction from the commitment payment from measures for protection of competition, leniency program, collusive bidding in public procurements and dawn raids.
The cooperation between France and Serbia in the competition policy domain is implemented as part of the Serbia’s converging efforts in relation to the European practices and legislation implemented in the area relevant to the EU accession criteria, defined as: “sustainable market economy and capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.”
This seminar is the continuation of cooperation between the two institutions, commenced with the first French-Serbian competition policy seminar held in October 2017.