Opening a seminar on the protection of competition, today, at the MPs’ club (Klub Poslanika) in Belgrade, the Assistant to the Minister for trade, services, prices and consumer protection Ljiljana Stanković stated that the protection of competition implies the strong presence of the state in the market, but it also indicates that the state has a whole new role. This is the first of five seminars in the field of competition, which the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications is organizing in collaboration with the EU funded IPA 2011 Project “Strengthening Competition in Serbia”.

Stanković pointed out that the effective independent authorities for the protection of competition and the effective judiciary system are complementary to the level of market freedom and added that the efficiency of the courts in that regard improves the freedom of competition.

She concluded that the role of the modern state is to develop mechanisms for monitoring the market and responding to illegal activities of participants, who violate the competitiveness game, whether through the fight against a strong market position, prohibited agreements, unfair competition among traders or unfair business practices and unfair contract terms targeting the consumer.

The lectures on the first day were given by the international expert on the protection of competition, Andrej Plahutnik.

The aim of the seminars on the protection of competition is to familiarize the participants with the policy on protection of competition, the legal framework in Serbia and the EU in that field and the influence of distortion of competition on consumers, and the topics are as follows:

• Policies and laws of competition, November 6, 2013;
• Rules of competition in trade, November 13, 2013;
• Efficient competition and consumers, November 26, 2013;
• Competition and public procurement, December 4, 2013;
• Competition and telecommunications, December 18, 2013.