Russia is actively involved in the work of OECD economic regulators
The experience of the Russian Federation on co-regulation between the authorities and organizations was used as an example of the best practices. Such co-regulation in Russia takes place under the frame of the Market Council in the electric power industry, the Exchange Council on the markets of oil, gas, etc.
On 25 April 2017, Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin made a report at an OECD workshop in Paris about regional cooperation among economic regulators. The Report concerned cooperation between competition authorities under the frame of the CIS, EAEU and thematic International Working Groups.
A vivid interest to the report was determined, in particular, by the information presented about the high level of organizing the surveys conducted by the Headquarters at the Intergovernmental Council on Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP) on the key markets, and the antimonopoly investigations on them. “System-wide, targeted and result-oriented, coherent efforts of the antimonopoly bodies are very important, and they lead to cardinal changes on the relevant goods markets, which are highly praised by the Council of the CIS Heads of Governments on the regular basis. The work goes beyond the boundaries of the CIS. Many developed and developing countries join it under the frame of the International Working Groups on telecommunications, oil and oil products, pharmaceuticals, etc.”, pointed out Anatoly Golomolzin.
Other reports at the workshop concerned activities of the European Water Regulators – EWR, Francophone network of telecommunications regulators - FRATEL), Mediterranean Energy Regulators – MedReg, the Energy Regulators Regional Association - ERRA. Representatives of economic regulators and academia took part in the discussions.
A day before, on 24 April 2017, Anatoly Golomolzin attended the 8th session of OECD Network of Economic Regulators that discussed various aspects of enhancing experiences and areas of further cooperation.
The session focused on the Review of Mexico Energy Regulators. The Report was executed in line with the Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators - PAFER. State regulation of the key sectors of the economy was evaluated – from energy generation to distribution, including regulator competences in economic and technological regulation. Performances of the Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment – ASEA, the National Hydrocarbons Commission – NHC, and the Energy Regulatory Commission – ERC were evaluated.
There was also a Round Table on evaluating state regulation based on OECD guidelines for Product Market Regulation – PMR. This long-developed methodology employs a set of indicators, according to which regulation is evaluated in light of pro-competitive high-quality business environment, covering, in particular, network infrastructure. Since 1975 considerable statistics has been accumulated on regulatory processes in telecommunications, postal services, the electric power sector, gas, railways, passenger air transportation, highways.
In 2013 – 2014 NER refined the initial PMR indicator set, including formal requirements on independence, transparency, etc. It is expected that an additional set of PMR indicators will be ready by 2018. The discussion, including the contribution from the representative of Russian economic regulator, showed that changes can be rather significant, based on the modern understanding of pro-competitive economic regulation.
Columbia’s Communication Regulation Commission – CRC presented useful information about recording indicators on the quality of services in telecommunications and information technologies based on consumer preferences. In fact, technological indicators of the quality of work are insufficient to evaluate operator performance on the relevant markets.
The secretariat gave information on the prospects of using the Platform for NER cooperation. The Platform enables to work with NER documents in the form of multilateral electronic conferences. Anatoly Golomolzin pointed out that “this work is of interest not only because its will make cooperation between FAS and NER more technological, but also because FAS undertakes such efforts under the frame of its Methodological Council on Tariff Regulation”.