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Romania receives OECD Competition Committee formal opinion, as part of organisation membership process
Romania received the formal opinion of the Competition Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), after the completion of the relevant evaluation process, the Romanian competition authority announced in a release on Tuesday.
"The Competition Committee evaluated the authority's activities carried out between 2018 and 2022 and confirmed Romania's willingness and capacity to implement the legal instruments, policies, and practices of the Organization in the field of competition, as established in the Roadmap for Romania's accession to the OECD," the release states.
The Competition Council leadership participated in June 2024 in talks on the evaluation report, with the OECD Competition Committee expressing its appreciation for the quality of Romania's presentation and the delegation's willingness to answer questions, the cited source emphasizes.
The evaluation report includes a series of long-term recommendations regarding the appointment of the members of the Competition Council's plenum based on competence criteria and the determination of the level of fines as part of the guilty plea procedure. The authority is expected to present the status of these implementations in one year.
During this process, the Competition Council benefited from the support and expertise of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Also attending the discussions on the evaluation report were a Foreign Ministry delegation headed by Secretary of State Luca Niculescu, national coordinator for Romania's OECD accession process, and Adrian Vierita, ambassador in charge of Romania's OECD accession process.
In 2014, the Romanian competition authority was granted the status of associate member in the OECD Competition Committee, making Romania the first non-OECD member state to benefit from this status.