The Competition Council last year imposed fines totaling over 19 million lei. Of this sum, 5 million lei was already collected into the state budget. In an event held to present the Council’s report for 2016, chairwoman Viorica Carare said the goal of the national competition regulator is not to punish business entities, but to make them realize that they can distort the competition environment. The existence of fair competition is a precondition for the population to benefit from goods and services of a high quality and at reasonable prices, IPN reports.
Viorica Carare said that even if the Competition Council is a young institution compared with the relevant European authorities, it already shares its experience in state aid registration and monitoring with the Ukrainian colleagues. “We aim to share our experience in state aid also with our colleagues from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. We hope we will be accepted by the European authorities. Surely we hope that in the future we will be providers of European experience in the field of competition,” she stated.
Among the objectives set by the Competition Council for this year are the implementation of the new national program in the field of competition and state aid that was recently approved by the Government, stepping up of efforts to promote the competition culture in society, identification of state aid that is provided illegally or misused, conducting of studies to examine different market segments and implementation of the Association Agreement’s provisions on competition and state aid.
The Competition Council was created ten years ago. It developed its institutional capacities with the assistance of experts from EU member states, mainly Romania.
