On 25 November 2009 the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) and its Competition Culture Centre (GVH VKK) organised a conference "Balance of five years of competition policy or else what the period since the EU accession brought to Hungary and this region". On this occasion, among others, Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy held a speech.

The jewel in the crown of the European Union is the Single Market of 500 million citizens and this is an achievement that we have to maintain - claimed Neelie Kroes , EC Commissioner for Competition Policy at the conference organised by the GVH.

http://www.gvh.hu/gvh/alpha?null&m5_doc=6209&pg=72&m5_lang=en

Among others was ...

Zsolt Hernádi , chairman and chief executive officer of Mol Nyrt., approached the topic of competition, competition regulation from the side of the undertaking involved in market competition. He claimed that Mol has acquired abundant experiences in competition law in the recent years; it received cold and warm critics as well. It has turned out from the proceedings that EU competition policy fundamentally influences the market practices of undertakings and enables Brussels to significantly intervene in the market processes. He highlighted that competition policy is the only field in EC law where policy is uniform. At the same time Mr. Hernádi called the attention of the audience to the fact that there are fields where EC law provisions cannot be a fully enforced. The gas market is not a competitive market. The suppliers are not European states, they do not act in line with "market-conform" principles. On the contrary, the energy policy of the EU is rather inward not taking into account the above specialities - Mr. Hernádi claimed. The gas markets of the Eastern-Central European countries are not linked to each other in infrastructure, moreover all of them import energy sources from the same place. Unless these conditions alter, no competitive market can be evolved. It would be a good solution if Brussels extended the market dominance investigation outside the boundaries of the EU, and it developed its regulations in a differentiated way, by taking into consideration the special features of the individual markets.