PRESS RELEASE

ANTITRUST TO GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT: LIBERALIZATION HAS ACCELERATED, BUT MUCH REMAINS TO BE DONE

Process needs to be implemented and extended. At the Executive's request, a report has been submitted for advance preparation of the draft annual law on the market and competition. Additional room for interventions in postal services, insurance, professional services, public administration, transport and local public services. Review federalism and continue on the path towards judicial form.

While the market liberalization process has shown signs of rapid acceleration under the Monti Government, much remains to be done. So reads the report by the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, under the signature of President Giovanni Pitruzzella, which offers a snapshot of the 'state of the art' in individual markets: reforms completed, laws to be implemented, further changes needed.

In the report, requested by the Government to prepare the annual law on competition in advance, the Antitrust reaffirms the opening of markets and the introduction of competitive mechanisms as representing essential ingredients for stimulating growth and increasing the well-being of consumers. They will need to be accompanied, however, by fast and efficient institutions that provide clear timeframes for potential investors in our Country. The process already underway needs to leave the mutual veto game behind by rethinking the current federalist structure, to orient public administration to the service of businesses and citizens and to reform the judiciary in the wake of the effective efforts already launched by the ministry of competence.

While waiting for the Country's institutional architecture to be redesigned, the reserve powers of the State and the Regions need to be strengthened to avoid the inertia of local Entities. Should Regions fail to intervene in Municipalities, the State shall be charged with making the necessary decisions.

For the Authority, maneuvering room is still to be found for additional market openings and pro-competition measures – from transport to energy infrastructures, from postal services to the insurance industry, from public to professional services and all the way up to healthcare.

Some of the principles are transverse. Where services are carried out in concession, the duration of the concession needs to be reduced to reflect the timeframe for realizing returns on investments.  When concessions expire, transparent and competitive tendering procedures need to be used for their reassignment. Tariffs should not be oriented towards inflation but instead to recovering efficiency on the basis of price-cap mechanisms.

In transport, a sector-based Authority needs to be put into effect. The public service manager's need for economic equilibrium needs to be combined with the entry of other operators by charging them royalties. This would prevent the entry of competitors into more profitable sectors from exerting a negative impact on the public manager's accounts. This particular contribution would be collected by the entity that subsidizes universal service activities.

The Antitrust has reminded the Government and Parliament that these processes may lead, over the short term, to closures of less efficient businesses and lower employment: policies will be needed to maintain social cohesion and provide support for weaker subjects.

The Authority, lastly, intends to give a new impetus to the clemency program for combatting secret cartels among companies and has requested regulatory adjustments to incentivize their denunciation by subjects. This tool is important because these understandings are typical, in practice, to public tendering, and their successful defeat would make a fundamental contribution to reductions in public spending.

Rome - 2 October 2012