Bejek, Josef --- "Transition Countries Facing Transitory Competition Rules: ‘Moving Shooter’ Taking Aim at a ‘Moving Target’" [2010] ELECD 239; in Zäch, Roger; Heinemann, Andreas; Kellerhals, Andreas (eds), "The Development of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The Development of Competition Law

Editor(s): Zäch, Roger; Heinemann, Andreas; Kellerhals, Andreas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848444461

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Transition Countries Facing Transitory Competition Rules: ‘Moving Shooter’ Taking Aim at a ‘Moving Target’

Author(s): Bejek, Josef

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

7. Transition Countries Facing
Transitory Competition Rules:
`Moving Shooter' Taking Aim at a
`Moving Target'
Josef Bejcek*

1 GENERAL INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

It is a somewhat strange feeling to talk about the issue of development of
competition law from the perspective of a new member state of the EU.
It resembles the situation of proverbial `talking about rope in hangman's
house'. The reason why is as follows: new member states are to blame
(at least indirectly) because of the pressure on modernisation of the EU
competition law. This law and its enforcement were difficult enough even
before the accession of new joining states. The shock of accession of ten
new states partially without sufficient antitrust legislation and antitrust
culture might have been fatal and deadly. It is, of course, too early to
assess the `modernisation package' of the EU competition law and its
direct impact on the legal systems of particular member states. Anyway, it
is a strategic attempt to remove internal faults of the system and to secure
its workability under changed circumstances by the means of `residual
decentralization and selective recentralization'.1
Some argue that the word `modernisation' usually only disguises the
fact that there is not enough money or other resources for anything and
that it should be therefore changed. I think it was (at least partially) the
case in so-called modernisation of European competition law though
its reasons were obviously more complex. Nevertheless we might admit


* Professor of Law; Director of the Department of Commercial ...