Implementing European Competition Policy Issues into HEIs Curricula in Albania

ongoing

"The competition policy compounds the core political pillar in the European union due to the relevant significance in each sector of economy. The added significance of competition policy related to the its comprehensive effects towards the national markets and global markets. Implementation of European standards related to the competition policy into the non-European countries remains the robust challenge. The practical cases according to diverse markets have highlighted the impossible mission to avoid the market failures, particularly the market power in the non – pure market economy. We foster to review and to adapt the EU standards of competition policy into the academic courses in HEIs. According to this context, the general objective of this project to adopt the European Standards of Competition Policy into the Industrial Organization and Economics of European Integration Curricula. Our university in Albania have involved the partial dimensions of these topics in their curricula, but they need more efforts to converge them according to the EU standards. The courses delivered under this framework of project gave an overview of the economic concepts, theoretical approaches and quantitative methods used in the main areas of European competition policy and state aid policy. The core issues of courses are such as: market power, definition of the relevant market, dominance and abuse, predatory behavior, merger policy, vertical restrains and empirical techniques used in competition analyses and state aid policy. Also, we examine the diverse theories according to the anti-competitive practices and discuss related to the evaluation of harmful effects on competition and consumers. The crucial aim of courses focuses to demonstrate the contribution of ""economic approach"" within the application of competition law, competition policy and state aid policy, but also to acknowledge its limitations. "