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Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic Annual Report 2001
14
the Office could not agree with the statement that it is a measure of governmental economic
policy.
·
Enclosure to the draft of the Act on Transformation of State Fund for Market Regulation of the
Slovak Republic in agriculture sector to Intervention Agriculture Agency determined the
minimum price, generally binding for all subjects, which are going to sell and purchase goods
in the internal run. This price has been determined in the definition of institutional prices within
other essential features necessary to organise and support market.
From the view of competition is the fixing of minimum prices, which should be declared for
individual agricultural products contrary to the competition principles as it causes
distortion of
competition. Regarding this fact the Office suggested that the price
regulation should be in harmony with Act on Prices.
·
Draft of the Act on Production and Run of Spirit should solve mainly the procedure of
permission issuing on production and processing of spirit in distillery and its launch to the
market. Subjected permission should be issued only to those applicants, who own a distillery.
The Office considered the mentioned fact as a discrimination as it would result in elimination of
part of distillery entrepreneurs, who run their businesses in the leased premises. Adopting this
provision the competition in the relevant market would significantly decrease as the subjected
provision would affect 58% of distilleries and 33% of raw spirit plants running their businesses
in the leased premises.
·
The draft of the Act on Postal services, which has increased criterion threshold for the weight
within the postal limits for collecting and distribution of correspondence and advertisement
addressed mails up to 1000 grams till December 31, 2003 did not bring the liberalisation of
postal services market, but it strengthened the monopoly position of company Slovenská pošta
and its exclusivity over the framework acceptable from the view of protection and support of
competition in the Slovak Republic, what is also contrary to the requirements of European
Union.
·
The Office commented the draft of Slovenská pošta, š.p. transformation to the joint-stock
company with the 100% state participation. The subjected transformation should strictly
separate proprietary from the regulatory and legal competences of the state. The present
status would enable Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunications as an „owner“ of
dominant provider of postal services, owning the legal rights as well to interfere directly or
indirectly into the market relations. Separation of proprietary and legal competences has not
been completed.
·
In the draft of Act on Forests and State Administration of Forestry the Office hold an opinion
that part of forest state property (for example certain buildings and equipment serving in
forestry) could be subject to privatisation. Within the subjected draft of the act the Office
advocated to allow all justified subjects to prepare forestry plans, what could abolish the
restrictive aspect of competition development.
·
Within the conception of privatisation of testing rooms in the force of Office for Normalisation,
Metrology and Testing and their regulation framework the Office recommended to build the
structured system of independent testing rooms, which should be subject to competition prior
the centralisation of this activity through the proposed „testing house“.
·
In the course of 2001 the Office also commented several drafts of the acts within the
interministry comment proceedings, namely those solving the issues of establishing and
operating of chambers (for example Slovak Trade Chamber, Slovak Chamber of Nurses and
Midwives, Slovak Business and Industrial Chamber). Adjustment of the obligatory membership
in these chambers was one of the common issues of these drafts. In several cases the Office
objected the obligatory membership in chambers as an administrative barrier to entry the
market and its binding to the registration and it has been proposing its voluntariness. In the
submitted documents the Office noticed the effort of chambers to take over the substantial
competences connected with issuing permissions to provide healthcare and with the definition
of regions of non-state medical institutions etc.
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