OREANDA-NEWS. June 07, 2013. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) discussed the best world practices of competition enforcement in the Balkan region at Sofia Competition Forum in Bulgaria, organized by the Competition Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

This year special attention was paid to the role of national competition authorities in liberalizing natural monopolies (using as examples, the transport, telecommunications and electric power sectors).

At the Plenary Session on “Competition in the Network Industries”, an advisor to the FAS Department for Control over Transport and Communications, Alexei Gorlinsky, discussed specifics of antimonopoly regulation of natural monopolies in the network sectors of the economy in the Russian Federation.

First, control over non-discriminatory access to the markets and the goods / services produced or sold by holders of natural monopolies, which must be provided on a guaranteed basis with certain connection procedures. Second, control over compliance by the holders of natural monopolies (in railway carriage, airports, ports, gas, oil and oil products transportation) with the information disclosure standards.

Russian law prohibits restricting economically justifies transition of national monopolies to competitive markets. As a result, the list of activities, the tariffs for which are regulated by the state, should be reduced.

So far such sectors as railway passenger transportation in coaches and first-class cars, loading – unloading works in some seaports, передача почтовых посылок и and postal money transfers have been transformed from natural monopolies into competitive markets. Participants also actively discussed transition of particular public telecommunications services to the state of competitive markets.

“It was interesting to learn about experience of competition advocacy in the European Union, particularly, the Balkan countries, where competition authorities are actively involved in verifying whether sectoral legislation complies with the antimonopoly law in other countries”, said an advisor to the FAS Department for Control over Transport and Communications, Alexei Gorlinsky.

Taking part in such events, ion particular, organized by Bulgaria’s competition authority, enables to inform foreign colleagues about the latest trends in developing Russian antimonopoly law and learned about experience of the colleagues from the antimonopoly bodies of the Balkan countries on the most pressing issues of competition policy.

Cooperation with Bulgaria’s competition authority takes place under the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Bulgaria on antimonopoly policy (Sofia, May 1995).