*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. Discussions on the institutional system devised in 1986 to regulate competition, on the usefulness of reforming it to make it more effective and on the best ways of doing so were, until a few months ago, mainly the work of competition practitioners, academics and experts. This time has passed since the national representation took an interest in the matter through a rapporteur of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly at the end of 2006. This public debate, which the President of the Competition Council had called for, is to be welcomed. Well regulated and well understood, competition can indeed be a powerful stimulus for the economy, for growth
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ARTICLE - INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF NATIONAL COMPETITION AUTHORITIES - FRENCH COMPETITION COUNCIL - DGCCRF - SYSTEM MODERN, SIMPLE, TRANSPARENT AND EFFICIENT - EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURS - MODERNISATION OF EC COMPETITION LAW - EUROPEAN MODEL - SINGLE INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY - ENSURING PUBLIC ENFORCEMENT - OTHER PUBLIC INTERESTS - STRATEGIC MERGER CASES
Which institutional framework for regulating competition? An European family portrait
Twenty years have lapsed since the Order of 1986 liberated the economy and created an independent competition authority, but kept its role intertwined with that of the ministerial department. The thoughts aimed at making this system more modern, simple, transparent and efficient can take advantage of what is done by our European neighbours. The modernisation of European competition law has indeed seen the setting up of a network which is a powerful source of stimulation and convergence. Spain, which had looked towards France in 1989, has just reformed itself in order to reap the benefits of the European model. Like almost all other Member States, it now entrusts the regulation of competition to a single independent authority, which brings all assets together in accordance with the rights of defence and applies a full set of tools aimed at ensuring public enforcement... while allowing, like a few other European countries, the Government to openly explain that other public interests must prevail in some strategic merger cases. Luxembourg being in the same process, twenty-five Member States will soon have a unified system*.
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