Transition

The notion of transition was initially a sign of the transitional nature of the Regulatory Law and the proof of its consubstantiality with the Competition Law.

Indeed, especially in sectors where the ideal was thought to be Competition, as in telecommunications, it was thought that the competitive market was not present because of historical phenomena such as the constitution of public monopolies. It was therefore sufficient firstly and by a legal act to declare competition as a legitimate principle and then, because it is not enough to declare competition, it must still be constructed by treating the dominance of certain operators, in particular historical operators, it was necessary to set up a regulating apparatus. From this point of view, the Regulatory Law, in particular the constitution of Regulatory Authorities, would succeed through the establishment by the force of the Law of a competitive market, thus signing the end of this particular Law, replaced by the common Competition Law , under the sole and sufficient function of a Competition Authority.

In this perspective, the aim of the Regulatory Law was to make a transition to Competition Law.

That has not happened. The Regulatory Law has not dissolved in the Competition Law. It now seems clear that the Regulatory Law does not express a "transition", in any sector.

But this term has taken on quite a different meaning through the notion of "energy transition". Indeed, to take the French example of the Act of 18 August 2015 sur la transition énergétique pour une croissance verte  (on the energy transition for green growth), the Regulatory Law today expresses a political will for transformation which does not bring back to the ordinary merchant but on the contrary, towards an economy built on pillars that would not exist without a regulation which in this example rests both on the protection of the environment and the protection of people.

Thus, the notion of transition reconnects with the notion of public policies and allows the sectoral Regulators and the crucial operators to dynamically realize the transition from a regulation to another regulation, which the Politics alone can not do.