Friday, July 26, 2013
Spain's regulatory merger
Although Spain needs to
improve coordination among its regulatory agencies, the creation of a
National Commission on Markets and Competition would seem to be the
opposite of what the European Union had in mind. The controversial move merges eight agencies and commissions responsible
for competition, telecom, energy, mail, railways, airports, gambling
and audiovisual media. I argue in a working paper of IESE that neither the purported savings nor the need for greater
coordination justifies such total integration. What's more, government projections that this will save millions derive
more from changes to the merger as originally planned, rather than from
efficiencies gained through the merger itself. The European Commission has stated all along that it was
concerned about the loss of independence that would result from an
all-encompassing regulatory body. The most serious warning came in February 2013 from Neelie Kroes, vice
president of the Commission, who threatened sanctions unless Spain made
substantial changes to its original plan. The Spanish government responded by changing some of the most
questionable aspects. The whole summary of the working paper and a link to it can be accessed here.
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