This concerns a request for making Microsoft`s software, i.e. appropriate documentation, available to all repair software experts, not only to Microsoft professionals.
"No company is allowed to be beyond the law, and Microsoft will have to accept needs and demands, if this corporation intends to continue working in European Union", specifies commissioner Kroes.
When it comes to market malpractices in Serbia, all governments were strong in words, but without result. Trade margins are major problem in Serbia, which leads to absurd situation that milk made in our country is more expensive in Belgrade, then in Skopje or Podgorica.
Margins at Serbia`s market are from two to four times bigger then ones within the European Union, and almost every major participant on national market earn "like there is no tomorrow".
"While margins in Serbia amount 25 to 30 percent, in EU countries they do not exceed 18 percent. Margins in our country as so high that, according to some statistics, an average family could save 40 euros a month, or approximately 500 euros a year", says Miladin Kovacevic, the Economics Institute associate, adding that "Competition Protection Law needs urgent changes, after which a research institution has to be formed for the purposes of the Competition Protection Committee".
In order to discipline market participators, developed countries opt for market reorganisation, and so each country decides when to begin with anti-monopoly policy.
Sweden has not been developing anti-monopoly policy before having national trade marks. On the other hand, Norway, which had anti-monopoly protection from the very beginning, has not developed major brands, with the exception of Telenor.
Several parameters influence on ingredients price increase on Serbian market. Enclosed market, protected monopolists, lack of competition and bad administrative measures such as wheat export prohibition, are only some reasons which cause strategic ingredients price increase. Experts believe that cheap food era has passed and that Serbia cannot exist outside the rest of the world, where food demand increases more and more each day. While Serbia waits for her regulatory bodies to become more courageous, Europe gives few good examples on how to organise and discipline major market parties.
European Commission has decided to open formal antitrust proceeding in March 2008 against Visa Europe Ltd, a credit card financial company, in order to investigate whether this company has fixed unfair commissions for international payments. Visa has reacted immediately, announcing that investigate procedure was expected and that it represents "a standard procedural step", saying that commission collecting system for credit card payments from third countries was under suspect in 1997, when EuroCommerce, Retail International Trade Representation to the EU, has appealed to the Commission in Brussels that Visa charges are too expensive.
* Published: 2008/10/31
