Roundtable #3
Regulatory impact assessment and their actors
Liza Bellulo,
Autorité de la concurrence
Chef du service du Président
(Chief of the President’s office)
Theory and Practice of Regulatory Impact assessment, UCL-ENA, Paris, 10 June 2013
How does competition impact assessment fit into
the general impact assessment model in France ?
 Regulatory impact assessment and competition impact assessment,
which had followed their own path, have converged from 2008-2009
 Introduction of a new constitutional requirement of regulatory impact
assessment (art. 39 Const, org. law of 15 April 2009),building on traditional
scrutiny mechanisms (SGG, Conseil d’Etat)
 Confirmation and strengthening of the French competition
competition authority’s (Autorité de la concurrence)
advocacy powers and relations with the Parliament
 A guide dedicated to competition impact assessment (2012),
prefaced by the Secretary General to the government
 Convergence still needs to be completed
 No specific heading dedicated to competition assessment
 There are strong justifications for a systematic assessment:
democratic accountability, competitiveness concerns, legal security.
Eg: opinions relative to online sales of non-prescription medicines , 2013
Conduct of competition impact assessment by
an indepedent authority: the French experience
 Two ways to conduct a competition impact assessment:
 The Autorité as a trusted advisor: empowering « in-house » assessment
which conveys « offensive » and « defensive » advantages for the
ministry of the economy, as a possible « voice of competition » in interdepartmental meetings
 The Autorité as a public watchdog… which may therefore say « no » (eg:
ebooks pricing)… But which answers more frequently « yes, but »,
suggesting mitigating measures (eg: railway transport, 2008-2009)
 The direct involvement of the Autorité bears two
distinctive marks
 Stakeholder consultation and formal hearing before the board, which
adopts the opinion independently
 Final opinion made public, which feeds into public debate, notably with
the Parliament, but also engages stakeholders. Eg. ex officio sector
inquiry on car repair and maintenance, 2012
Is independent impact assessment the
philosophical stone ?
 Takeaways from the French experience
 A balanced process which avoids two extreme biases: self-promotion or
stacking the deck for interest groups
 But… independent assessment is a complementary way rather than the
exclusive recipe, and it is not an end in itself: limited resources, assessment
not possible on all posible headings: this should be no pretext for holding
up a legislation actually necessary to fix an issue for genuine reasons of
general interest => prioritization, possibility of ex officio intervention
 Five critical « enabling factors »
 A strong culture of RIA within government departments, supported by
quality controls, and where relevant, legally binding provisions
 Early competition impact assessment based on open options, going beyond
a mere costs/benefit analysis
 Clear legal basis for advocacy from competition/independent authorities
 Strong and direct relationship with Parliament of those authorities
 Mechanisms to spur ex post impact assessment, on a selective or
comprehensive basis