The transition to the euro in its first 10 days is proceeding calmly and without shocks, despite the preliminary apocalyptic predictions. He stated this in “The Day Begins with Georgi Lyubenov“ the chairman of the Commission for Protection of Competition, Rosen Karadimov. He emphasized that the smooth introduction is the result of the serious preliminary work of the institutions and the chosen approach of dialogue and sectoral analysis, rather than sudden repressive inspections.
"The work that was done behind the scenes by the executive branch, by the NRA, the Competition Commission and by us as a regulatory body was a lot and it was obvious that it would yield results“, added Karadimov.
The chairman of the Competition Commission explained that even before the introduction of the euro, an approach based on analysis and dialogue was chosen, rather than ostentatious repressive actions.
„There were two philosophies – one was for the CPC as a unit for combating organized crime to suddenly come in to conduct inspections and impose fines, the other philosophy was to come in with a calm sectoral analysis“, said Karadimov.
According to him, this analysis, which began in the summer, was aimed at the so-called modern trade and revealed serious structural problems.
“The analysis showed severe deformations in the food sector, an unequal situation in negotiations between producers and retail chains“, he pointed out. Karadimov specified that “the large markups we talked about are at the expense of the producer, not the consumer“.
The CPC has given a three-month deadline – until February 10 – for the introduction of regulatory rules and regulation of relations in the sector. He stressed that currently the entire business is behind the CPC.
With regard to final prices, the CPC chairman stressed that a careful approach has been chosen.
„When it comes to final prices, we considered that the form of dialogue is more appropriate“, he concluded.
Karadimov reported that the chosen approach of self-regulation is already yielding results in large retail chains.
„We said that we rely on self-regulation and what happened - before Christmas, large chains began to announce price freezes, very large promotional campaigns, much more voluminous“, he pointed out.
Karadimov stressed that the serious challenge remains in another segment of the food market - the so-called traditional trade, referring to neighborhood and small stores. According to him, the balance of power is reversed there.
“There the store is in the weaker position, and the supplier is in the stronger position, who changes its price every week“, explained Karadimov, adding that this forces merchants “either to raise the price or to lower their margin to a level that puts them on the verge of survival“.