ECN Brief

European Consumer and Competition Day Conference, Bucharest, 4 April

The European Consumer and Competition Day conference was organized jointly by the Competition Council of Romania and the National Authority for Consumer Protection, under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, at the Palace of Parliament, in Bucharest, on 4 April 2019,.

The conference featured the key note speeches by Ms. Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition and Ms. Věra Jourová, the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, who inspired the debates on real convergence towards a non-discriminatory access to resources and benefits across EU. These goals were perceived from a new angle of the digital age, showing how competition policy should promote variety, innovation and quality, in the interest of consumers.  

More than 300 representatives of the European Commission, the national competition authorities, authorities for consumer protection, consumer associations and academic environment attended the conference. The agenda mirrored the priorities of the Romanian Presidency’s work programme, related to competitiveness and connectivity, emphasizing, in particular, relevant topics of debate, such as digital economy from the perspective of competition and consumers, the transposition processes of the Directive ECN Plus and the New CPC Regulation, cartel settlements and policy enforcement across EU.

More information on the conference and the programme of the Romanian Presidency could be found here:
 
Posted on 15/04/2019

New call for proposals for training national judges in EU competition law

The Commission has published its call for proposals for training national judges in EU competition law. The purpose is to co-finance projects aimed at improving the knowledge, application and interpretation of EU competition law.

Priority topics include the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, the Directive 2014/104 on antitrust damages actions, economic principles of competition law, state aid, competition law in regulated industries and digital markets. Preference will be given to projects offering training courses with consecutive levels, complementarity or an innovative approach compared to existing offers, and projects addressing judges from several member states in their training courses, thus encouraging cross-border networking.

For further information please visit this page:

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/calls/proposals_open.html  

The deadline for submitting the application is 15 April 2019

Posted on 25/01/2019

ECN+ Directive published in EU Official Journal

Directive (EU) 2019/1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 to empower the competition authorities of the Member States to be more effective enforcers and to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market has been published in the EU Official Journal. 

Member States have now until February 2021 to implement the Directive by ensuring national competition authorities enjoy the resources, independence and powers to enforce EU competition rules more effectively.

For more information, please visit this page.

 

 

Posted on 25/01/2019

Energy Monitoring Report 2018 published by the Bundesnetzagentur and the Bundeskartellamt

Jochen Homann: "Installed renewable energy capacity is greater than conventional energy capacity for the first time". Andreas Mundt: "The market concentration in conventional electricity generation declined further overall, but we still need to keep a close eye on developments"


Electricity generation and wholesale markets still in transition
"Renewable energy continues to expand. In 2017, there was more installed generating capacity from renewable than from conventional energy sources for the first time. The proportion of electricity generated from renewables continues to grow as well, reaching 36% of consumption last year," said Jochen Homann, Bundesnetzagentur President. Germany's total installed generating capacity increased by 5.8 GW to 217.6 GW, with 105.1 GW accounted for by conventional energy sources and 112.5 GW by renewables.
At 601.4 TWh, the level of electricity generation was the same as in 2016, with a disproportionate decrease in generation from non-renewable energy sources, particularly from hard coal-fired power plants. Renewable energies accounted for a total of 204.8 TWh. A large proportion (78%) of renewable energy is now sold directly on the market. Congestion led to 3% of renewable electricity being curtailed.

"The market concentration in conventional electricity generation declined again in 2017," explained Andreas Mundt, Bundeskartellamt President. "In particular, the combined market share of the largest electricity producers was down again on previous years. While that is a good thing for competition, it is still important for us to keep an eye on the market situation in Germany. The upcoming end to the use of nuclear power, the ongoing expansion of renewables and perhaps the redispatching markets are just a few of the many factors that could affect the future assessment of the state of competition."

Focus on retail markets and consumers

As with generation, the retail electricity and gas markets also showed a positive competitive development in 2017. "More competition means more choice for consumers and consequently cost benefits," said Mr Mundt. "The market share of the largest electricity suppliers for standard load profile and interval metered customers was down again on the previous year and, as for the two largest retail gas markets, was still considerably below the threshold where we presume a dominant position in the market."
As at 1 April 2018, the average electricity price for household customers was stable, at 29.88 ct/kWh (2017: 29.86 ct/kWh). The price stabilisation was partly due to the fact that network charges fell and surcharges were flat. "Average network charges for household customers fell in 2018 for the first time since 2011 and were down by almost 2% year-on-year," pointed out Mr Homann. "Competition plays an important role in how households can cope with rising electricity prices. People can often save a lot of money by changing electricity supplier. It is therefore difficult to understand why the switching rate for electricity customers stayed the same in 2017 and for gas contracts actually fell slightly," said Mr Homann and added, "The proportion of households on default supply contracts is falling steadily but still makes up around 28% of electricity customers."
Price comparison sites, which allow customers to compare electricity and gas tariffs and act as intermediaries, have become very important. "Nearly a quarter of household energy supply contracts are now concluded via comparison sites, so it is vital for consumers to be able to trust their reliability, objectivity and transparency," stressed Mr Mundt. In October 2017, therefore, the Bundeskartellamt's new Decision Division for Consumer Protection launched an inquiry into the comparison site sector, which includes those sites in the energy sector and aims to uncover and provide further detail about possible breaches of consumer protection law.
The number of households whose electricity supply was disconnected at the request of suppliers rose by about 13,600, while for gas the figure remained relatively stable with just a small increase of about 200 households.

The latest report and additional information (in German) are available on the Bundeskartellamt’s website.

Posted on 14/12/2018

Commission welcomes provisional political agreement reached by European Parliament and Council on new rules to make national competition authorities even more effective enforcers

The European Commission welcomes the provisional political agreement reached on 30 May 2018 by the European Parliament and the Council on the Commission proposal of March 2017 for a Directive to make Member States' competition authorities even more effective enforcers of EU antitrust rules. The Directive intends to further empower the national competition authorities by providing them with appropriate enforcement tools, to bring about a genuine common competition enforcement area.

Commissioner in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said: "EU antitrust rules make markets work better for European consumers and businesses, giving them more choice and better prices. Member States' competition authorities and the Commission work together hand in hand to enforce these rules across the EU. This Directive will give national competition authorities effective tools and make sure they have the resources necessary to detect and sanction companies that break EU competition rules. It will also ensure that they can take their decisions in full independence, based on the facts and the law. I would like to thank the European Parliament – especially the Rapporteur Andreas Schwab and the shadow rapporteurs – and the Bulgarian, Estonian and Maltese Presidencies for their commendable work on this file."

The new rules will make sure that national competition authorities will:

  • Act independently when enforcing EU antitrust rules and work in a fully impartial manner;

  • Have the necessary financial and human resources to do their work;

  • Have all the powers needed to gather relevant evidence;

  • Have adequate tools to impose proportionate and deterrent sanctions for breaches of EU antitrust rules; and

  • Have coordinated leniency programmes which encourage companies to come forward with evidence of illegal cartels.

The legal text still needs to be formally approved by the European Parliament and Council, which is expected by the end of 2018.

 

Background

On 22 March 2017, the European Commission proposed new rules to enable Member States' competition authorities to be more effective enforcers of EU antitrust rules. By ensuring that national competition authorities can act effectively, the Commission's proposal aims to contribute to the objective of a genuine Single Market, promoting the overall goal of competitive markets, jobs and growth. This proposal followed a public consultation, which the Commission carried out between November 2015 and February 2016.

Posted on 04/06/2018