Raising the quality - guidance to the Director General of Water Services on the environment and quality objectives to be achieved by the water industry in England and Wales 2000-2005
✍ Scribed by Debbie Legge
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Weight
- 44 KB
- Volume
- 10
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0960-2356
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
relaxed views on dominant positions ± and, hence, e.g. against Cable TV network divestiture by the former monopoly telecommunications operators under the competition rules. Again, competition DG IV is likely to come under fire. Although it is doubtful that such arguments may affect its enforcement practice, national competition authorities may be more easily intimidated. This discussion item clearly points in a less liberal direction: mainly, towards various side-payments under the headings of culture, and industrial policy. The likely beneficiaries are, evidently, those who might otherwise block a compromise, such as public sector broadcasters and the former telecommunications monopolists.
. The third issue is the ways in which a balanced approach to regulation could be ensured. This concerns, notably, the question of how market principles can be reconciled with public policy objectives, and the scope of regulation (e.g. in which areas self-regulation might suffice). In effect, this suggests that all the issues of procedure, principles, and substance in the regulatory front are still open ± what was considered to be the subject of the original Convergence Green Paper. It is impossible for any reasonable party to disagree with the suggestion that these issues should be considered carefully. Yet, it is discouraging that, at present ( platitudes such as ``there should be no more regulation than is necessary'' aside), there still appears to be no real sense for how regulation ought to be structured, and why.