Realigning Competition Advocacy Priorities in the Context of Economic Adjustment Programmes: The Greek Case

While Greece’s poor record on product market reforms predates the crisis, the deep recession that followed has made addressing those long-standing structural rigidities and inefficiencies a priority in the context of Greece’s Economic Adjustment Programme and beyond. Against this backdrop, the Hellenic Competition Commission diversified and expanded considerably its advocacy and outreach activities, in order to promote structural reforms notably in the area of professional services and regulatory barriers to competition in market. This contribution describes the advocacy initiatives undertaken by Greece’s competition authority during 2010–2016, which focused on four key areas: (a) liberalization of professional services (liberal professions), (b) ex-post evaluation of laws and regulations in designated sectors of the economy (a series of OECD-managed projects, in partnership with the HCC), (c) addressing targeted regulatory distortions mostly affecting retail and food supply chains and (d) publication of competition compliance and awareness guides, with a view to increasing overall public awareness of the benefits of increased competition. Although it is still difficult to quantify the benefits to growth brought about by such liberalization efforts, several comparative assessment reports suggest that Greece has improved its record in easing regulatory barriers to competition markedly (albeit still lagging compared to EU and OECD average). The Competition Commission’s ambitious advocacy efforts underline, amongst others, the need to implement a coherent regulatory impact strategy at the level of the central administration, so as to promote the ex ante control of draft laws and regulations affecting competition, thereby also safeguarding previously implemented reforms.