Hungary accused of tampering with EU antitrust investigation

Investigation into price-fixing was stopped in April 2013.

The European Commission on Wednesday (16 April) accused the Hungarian government of tampering with the independence of the national antitrust authority, and threatened to take legal action against the country.

The dispute arose after the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán intervened in April 2013 to stop an antitrust investigation into a government-sponsored agreement fixing the price of watermelons.

Hungary is a major grower of watermelons – production in 2012 was worth an estimated 8,824 million Hungarian forints (€30m). When watermelon farmers began to smash their fruit on the forecourts of local supermarkets in protest against cheaper foreign imports, the government encouraged supermarkets to agree a floor price of 99 Hungarian forints (€0.34) per kilo.

This prompted an antitrust investigation, which came to a sudden end after the Hungarian parliament adopted a law preventing the Hungarian competition authority from punishing cartels involving agricultural products unless it received permission from the ministry of agriculture.

But Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for competition, argues that this breaches EU competition law. He has given Hungary two months to bring its legislation into line.

Warning

This warning by the Commission is the latest in a string of high-profile challenges to laws introduced by Orbán, who won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections earlier this month.

In the face of pressure from the Commission and the European Court of Justice, Orbán has amended laws that were perceived as encroaching on the independence of the governor of Hungary’s central bank and of Hungary’s judiciary.

Last week, the ECJ found that Hungary had breached EU laws when it replaced its data protection supervisor, who is meant to be independent of government interference.

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