Empowerment of national competition authorities

Briefing 13-07-2017

The IA consistently emphasises the benefits of effective enforcement of EU competition law throughout the EU and assesses the contribution of the screened policy options to the general and specific objectives of the proposal. Its strengths lie in the solid expertise, based on internal and external research, its clear structure and its overall coherence. The analysis of the problems and their causes, and of the objectives, is comprehensive and concise. However, despite a clear attempt to comply with the BR guidelines, there are some weaknesses. These include the limited quantification of costs and benefits, the rather limited range of policy options – considering that option 1 and 2 are identified from the start as being ineffective – and the limited assessment of the options, except for option 3, which appears to have been identified very early in the process as the preferred option. Finally, the IA does not develop any operational objectives for the preferred option. Consequently, the proposed core indicators relate to the specific objectives, which, in this case, are rather general. This might imply some challenges for the monitoring, measuring and evaluation of the implementation of the provisions in the future.