Minutes of First Project Steering Committee Meeting



Minutes of the first Project Steering Committee MeetingProject: Implementing Croatian Competition and State Aid Policies-Twinning project(Italy, United Kingdom)Contract Number: 2007-0303-010101 HR 07 IB FI 03Date/Time: 16 July 2010, 09:00 – 10.00Venue: Croatian Competition Agency premises, Savska cesta 41, ZagrebMeeting Participants:For the CCA: Mladen Cerovac, SPO, Branimira Kova?evi?, Croatian Project leader and Head of PIU, Mirta Kapural, RTA counterpart and member of the PIU, Zlatan Jane?, director, State Aid Division, Goranka Maru?i?-Kontent, Director of Legal Affairs and Economic Analysis DivisionFor the EUD: Lino Molteni, task managerFor the CFCA: Nata?a Weiss, project managerFor the CODEF: Luka Raj?i?For the Croatian National Bank: Tatjana Perokovi?For the Judicial Academy: Vladimir Filipovi? (instead of Vi?nja Marinovi?)For the HAKOM (Croatian Post and Electronic Communications Agency): Nikola Popovi?For the Twinning partners: Alberto Heimler, project leader, Italy; Gianluca Sepe, Resident Twinning Advisor (RTA,) Italy, John Emeruwa, United Kingdom, medium term expert responsible for the State Aid componentOn 16 July 2010 members of the Steering Committee of the “Implementing CroatianCompetition and State Aid Policies” Twinning Project convened for the first meeting ofthe committee at the premises of the Croatian Competition Agency in Zagreb. The agenda for the first Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting was:Kick off of the twinning project;Organization of the first visibility eventPlanning of activities for the first quarterOutlook of activities for the second quarterAny Other Business1) Opening remarksMr Heimler as the MS Project Leader of the twinning partner-Italy, on behalf of the Project Team welcomed everybody and expressed its satisfaction with the fact that the twinning project has started. In addition, Mr Gianluca Sepe, RTA emphasised the importance of involving partner institutions- Croatian National Bank, Judicial Academy and HAKOM from the beginning of the project.The representative from the Central Bank, Ms Perokovi? thanked for the invitation to the meeting and explained that the trainings for the representatives from the Central Bank should be discussed in a separate meeting because the representatives of the CNB were not included in the planning activities regarding the project scope and specific activities. For that reasons the topics planned for the CNB's experts according to the Twinning Workplan are too simple and below the level of present expertise. It was also explained that, for training purposes, the CNB has organized number of study visits that included experts coming from different competition authorities. On several occasions representatives of the CCA also participated in that education and training. Furthermore it was underlined that the CNB will lose this power with the date of the full accession of Croatia to the European Union.Mr Popovi? from HAKOM also thanked the project team and the CCA for inclusion of HAKOM in the project and for the invitation to the meeting. He clarified the competence of the HAKOM which has limited powers in anti-trust and deals mainly with regulation. In this respect, it will be useful for the HAKOM colleagues to learn more about competition issues.Mr John Emeruwa, medium term expert for the State Aid briefly presented the State Aid component of the project.2) Proposal and Adoption of the agendaMr Heimler, MS Project Leader introduced the agenda for the first Steering Committee meeting. The agenda was then adopted by all present. Since the first item of the agenda-kick off the twinning project was covered in the introductory part of the meeting, the discussion moved to the next point of the agenda. 3) Organization of the first visibility eventMr Sepe, RTA explained to the members of the Steering Committee that the first visibilityEvent should be postponed after August due to holiday’s season. However, if the first visibility event is held in September it could overlap with the international conference organized by parallel IPA Services project on 29 September 2010. Therefore, the proposal is to have first visibility event in mid October when the event could be related to the first discussions on new bylaws to be adopted after new Competition Act enters into force on 1 October 2010. Ms Weiss from the CFCA explained that usually visibility event is held as soon as possible but that in this case it should be acceptable to hold it later if the EUD does not object and if this justification is presented in the first report. There was no objection from the side of the EUD. After short discussion, representatives of the CCA and other members of the Steering Committee adopted the proposal to hold first visibility event in the second or third week of October. 4) Planning of activities for the first quarterCompetition component- Mr Sepe presented the activities, explaining that, as a general rule seminarial training will be combined with on the job assistance on cases selected by the CCA. The RTA informed the Steering Committee that there is a plan to hold a “dawn raid” week in September where practical issues regarding conducting dawn raids would be presented to the beneficiary.Mr. Sepe underlined that the judicial academy should be taken on board as soon as possible to develop a plan of trainings for judges. It was agreed that the RTA, the BC PL and the RTA counterpart would meet with CNB and HAKOM representatives to discuss in more detail the schedule and planning of activities relevant to sectoral regulators.State Aid component- Zlatan Jane?, director of the State Aid Divison from the CCA and Mr John Emeruwa emphsasised the priorities for the State Aid component of the project. The focus should be on the closing EU negotiation benchmarks for Chapter 8, that is, shipyards, steel and transport sector with flexible plan. 5) Outlook of activities for the second quarterThe topic of the activities for the second quarter has been just briefly discussed and concluded that second quarter activities should start with other regulators (Central Bank, HAKOM). The representative from the Central Bank, Ms Perokovi? underlined that this issue should also be discussed during the separate meeting organized between the representatives of the CNB, consultants and optionally representatives of the CCA. 6) Any other BusinessSteering Committee agreed to hold its next meeting in the same week when the first visibility event will take place (second or third week of October). Minutes prepared by: Ms Mirta Kapural, RTA counterpart and PIU member ................
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