Abstract

In the course of encouraging competition in public services markets, Community law and national regulators increasingly impose accounting, companies' and structural separation between monopolistic and competitive activities of vertically integrated firms. This paper examines the characteristics of separation as legal and economic concept. The examination of recent developments of antitrust law gives evidence of the importance of separation as general principle of concurrence on the public services sectors. Starting from the analysis of the specific provisions (for the markets of telecommunications, gas, electricity, posts, railways and airways transport), four conclusions follow. First, within the European and national regulative framework of competitive public services a general legal principle of separation can be defined. Second, the choice between the various form in which this principle can be implemented should be based on the consideration of the specific economic, technical and structural characteristics of each market. Third, although a one best rule of separation does not exist, the changing intensity of the principle of separation makes it applicable to different historical and objective conditions of the market. Finally, the main problem of this asimmetric regulatory measure is the incapacity of the national regulatory bodies in developing and applying it to the competing companies.