AFTER EACH STAGE OF REALISATION OF THE NATIONAL PLAN, IT IS NECESSARY TO ASSESS QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE INDICATORS

The Antimonopoly authority continues working on a new National Plan for Development of Competition for 2021-2025

A joint meeting of the scientific and methodological Council of educational organizations and Departments of competition law and antimonopoly regulation of the FAS Russia and the Commission on competition law and improvement of antimonopoly legislation of the All-Russian public organization "Association of lawyers of Russia" was held.

In his welcome address, Sergey Puzyrevskiy, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, noted that in the elaboration of the National Plan for Development of Competition, it is necessary to take into account the specificities associated with restrictions because of the new COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

"We also need to pay attention to the digitalization and online circulation of goods, which involve the use of appropriate infrastructure, platforms that are beginning to influence the traditional commodity market. In this regard, the adoption of the 5th Antimonopoly package becomes much more actual", said Sergey Puzyrevskiy.

He recalled that the three-year period of the first National Plan for Development of Competition will be completed in 2020, and soon it should be summed up.

"As for the National plan for the next period, it is important to approve it on time, despite the fact that there are serious discussions on certain provisions, we need to update the range of activities that should be promoted in the field of competition," added the Deputy Head of the FAS Russia.

In his statement Artem Molchanov, Head of the Legal Department of the FAS Russia, spoke about the achievement of indicators and the main activities of the first National Plan for Development of Competition.

In particular, in all sectors of the economy, there are at least 3 economic entities, at least 1 of them belongs to private business, with the exception of the spheres of activity of natural monopolies and organizations of the military-industrial complex.

Another important result: compared to 2017, the number of violations of antimonopoly legislation by the public authorities decreased by 1.3 times. In addition, 18 of the 38 expected competition results of competition development were achieved.

As part of the realization of the National plan, the Federal laws on prohibiting the establishment of unitary enterprises in competitive markets, on not suspending requirement concerning public authorities when they are appealed to the court, and on the antimonopoly compliance. A draft law on expanding the right of the Government of the Russian Federation to use intellectual property without consent of the patent owner in case of threat of citizens’ life and health has been submitted to the State Duma.

The 5th "digital" antimonopoly package, a draft law on reforming the legal regulation of natural monopolies, and a draft law on the state regulation of prices (tariffs) were submitted for consideration by the Government of the Russian Federation.

"The National plan is a comprehensive document, January 1, 2019 is the date for submitting all draft laws to the State Duma, but some of them are still under consideration by the Government. Discussion of draft laws requires more active intervention of the expert community", said Artem Molchanov.

According to the speaker, the regional block of measures has been implemented by 100%: all regions approved key indicators of competition development and new "road maps", introduced amendments to the regulations of Executive Authorities, adopted acts on the organization of the antimonopoly compliance. 9 subjects of the Russian Federation have already approved plans to reform unitary enterprises, and in 38 regions - plans are in the final stage of development.

"It is important to assess not only quantitative but also qualitative indicators after each stage of the National plan implementation. The wider the assessment work will be done not only by the FAS Russia, but also by the expert community, the more objective results we will get," the speaker said.

Oksana Kuznetsova, Deputy Head of the Legal Department of the FAS Russia, told about the preparation of the draft National Plan for Development of Competition for 2021-2025.

The document was developed by the FAS Russia on the basis of instructions of the Government of the Russian Federation and was approved by 45 federal authorities, 21 of them supported the document. Currently the draft law is submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation.

Over the past three decades, Russia has already accumulated some experience in the development and implementation of policy documents in the field of competition development, which allowed in preparation of a new National plan to assess the results of its implementation and analyze the factors that hinder the achievement of all the stated goals.

"In particular, the timely implementation of activities and their interconnection played an important role in achieving results. When preparing the draft National plan, the task was to formulate its provisions so that the activities of the new National plan would proceed from a single concept, complement each other and have a visible result for the economy," said Oksana Kuznetsova.

The activities of the draft National plan can be divided into three large blocks: support small and medium-sized businesses, improvement of state and municipal property management by involving non-core unused property in economic turnover, and digitalization of antimonopoly and tariff regulation.

The document also provides for a range of activities for the development of exchange trade, a separate package of measures affects the regulation of financial markets, as well as measures in the field of international cooperation.

To achieve these goals, the draft National plan contains a number of instructions to federal, regional and municipal authorities.

Due to the need to mitigate the consequences of the new COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the project was supplemented with anti-crisis measures aimed at supporting small businesses, in particular in the field of trade and advertising, formulated on the results of discussions with representatives of the business community.

Sergey Maksimov, Assistant to the Head of the FAS Russia and Chief Scientific officer of the Institute of problems of science development of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also made a report. He spoke about the concept of the "road map" for the competition development in science and education.

In general, the work on the draft road map has been completed, and it should ensure an increase in the efficiency of procurement of research, development and technological works.

“To work on this document in November 2019 the FAS Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences created a joint working group. One of the key problems in the science and education development is the actual impossibility of direct participation of individuals and their temporary teams, i.e. those who actually carry out scientific detail (researchers, University teachers, self-employed citizens, including those who are retired or dismissed) in public procurement for the state research and development projects. This leads to the fact that about 80-85% of the funds allocated for research work to the winning organizations are returned as taxes to the budget and different funds, and are spent on the bureaucratic and economic needs of organizations.

Along with the "organizational slavery" of scientists and teachers, a major barrier to the competition development in Russian science is the monopoly dependence of all Russian scientific and educational organizations on foreign reference databases, which has become a factor in the degradation of Russian postgraduate and doctoral studies, scientific periodicals and monographic literature, and magazines. This dependence from foreign monopolies has led to the displacement of expert scientometry by the struggle for the best bibliometric indicators, which is more in the interests of foreign beneficiaries than of Russian ones,” said Sergey Maksimov.