President Basescu appoints adviser to run Competition Council

The new chairman of the Competition Council is Bogdan Chiritoiu, after the head of state signed a decree on Monday, appointing him for a five-year term.
Chiritoiu comes to the helm of one of the most powerful state institutions, and one of Romanian’s anticorruption watchdogs. The Competition Council is responsible for approving state aid policy. Chiritoiu replaces Gheorghe Oprescu, who was appointed at the helm of the Competition Council in September 2007 until March this year to carry to its end the five-year term of his predecessor, Mihai Berinde. Chiritoiu has up until now been state adviser with the Political Planning and Analysis Department of the Presidential Administration, being the president’s most loyal adviser. The Competition Council is one of the state’s most powerful institutions, reporting directly to Brussels. High-ranking officials of the Council have free access to companies and can ask for documents in the case of investigations, while fines can amount to up to 10% of the turnover. “The Competition Council will have to be more vigilant in the current context: the economic crisis puts more pressure on the Council, both as far as state aid is concerned, and amid an intensification in anti-competitive practices from privately-held companies,” Bogdan Chiritoiu told ZF.