The proposed changes in the consumer protection and competition protection laws will not lead to a decrease in prices and may even have the opposite effect. This was said by the leader of “We continue the change“ Assen Vassilev to journalists after a meeting of the Temporary Committee on Budget and Finance in the National Assembly, BTA reports.
According to him, the texts in the Consumer Protection Act were already proposed by GERB last year during the changes in the Euro Adoption Act and have not yet yielded any results. “What was seen was that they did not stop the price increases“, said Vassilev.
He indicated that “We Continue the Change“ will support, on second reading, two specific provisions in the competition protection bill, related to expanding the definition of unfair practices in contracts between retail chains and manufacturers.
According to Vassilev, however, the remaining texts in the draft are “very worrying“. He criticized the proposals, which in his opinion remove the presumption of innocence and put companies in a situation where they have to prove themselves that they are not guilty.
The leader of “We Continue the Change“ also commented that a new approach to determining “lack of competition“ is being introduced, in which companies can be treated as a cartel, without any coordination between them.
He also expressed doubts about the possibility of the state determining the “fair price“ for a huge number of goods. According to him, the Consumer Protection Commission and the Ministry of Economy cannot analyze millions of items on a daily basis and determine their real cost.
“This is an analysis that usually takes months and is done for a limited number of products. It is absurd to do it daily for millions of items“, said Vassilev.
According to him, the introduction of an administrative burden usually leads to the opposite effect and can cause an additional increase in prices.
He added that if the proposals are adopted in this form, the only real positive effect will be a better profit margin for Bulgarian producers compared to retail chains.