Hauptbeschreibung Proceedings of the Conference: ""The Reform of State Aid Rules on Services of General Economic Interest"" From the 2005 Monti-Kroes Package to the 2011 Almunia Reform, 30 September 2011 Global Competition Law Center, College of Europe, Bruges.

Proceedings of the Conference: "The Reform of State Aid Rules on Services of General Economic Interest". From the 2005 Monti-Kroes Package to the 2011 Almunia Reform, 30 September 2011 Global Competition Law Center, College of Europe, Bruges.

This book offers a legal understanding regarding the core elements of SGEI (Services of General Interest), and of how the post-Lisbon constitutional framework on SGEI affects the application of the EU market rules by the EU Court of Justice, including procurement rules, to public services. It is built up of three parts, namely Part I: No Exit from EU Market Law for Public Services, Part II: SGEI as a Constitutional Voice for Public Services in EU Law, and Part III: The cost of loyalty, the relationship between EU procurement and state aid legislation on social services and the Treaty rules on SGEI, ending with a case study of Swedish systems of choice. Analyses are also provided on how the EU legislator engages in the Europeanisation of social services through EU procurement and state aid rules that have an ambiguous relationship to the Treaty framework on SGEI. Some explanation to this ambiguity is proposed by studying how the application of EU state aid rules could hinder the development of Swedish systems of choice liberalizing publicly-funded elderly care and school education. Included are propositions on crucial but yet unsettled legal questions, in particular what the legal meaning and relevance of the notion of economic activity in EU market law are and which core elements characterize SGEI. This book is therefore mainly aimed at legal academics and practitioners but may also be of interest to political scientists. Caroline Wehlander studied at Umeå University and holds the title of Doctor of Laws. She lives and works in Sweden.

This book analyses the recent modernisation of EU State aid law from various perspectives, and considers both substantive and procedural aspects. It also discusses the reasons for, and the goals and future implications of the modernisation programme, including the evolution of the concept of State aid. The ambitious reform programme was launched in 2012 and has now been almost fully implemented by virtue of the adoption of new rules of procedure in July 2013, and exemption in June 2014. The book highlights the main aspects of this sector reform, which include the Commission’s change of attitude towards so-called positive aid, i.e. those able to promote economic growth, and the intention to focus on matters of greater systematic extent. These objectives also imply a third aspect: increasing the intensity of the control powers conferred on the Commission with regard to that aid that prove to be harmful to competition and the internal market. The book also examines the greater responsibility given to States for self-assessment of their economic policy measures, and explores the resulting impact on, and challenges posed to the administrations of the Member States. The book’s second part is devoted to the application State aid rules in the area of services of general economic interest, with a special focus on aid in the field of social health and infrastructure.

Recent years have seen the rise of EU State aid law as a crucial component of the European economic constitution. To date, however, the literature has neglected the contribution of this area of EU law to the internal market. This book seeks to fill this gap in our understanding of the economic constitution by exploring the significance of State aid law in addressing questions that go to the core of the internal market project. It does so by examining the case law relating to three different activities that Member States engage in: market participation, market regulation, and funding for Services of General Economic Interest. Each of these areas offers insights into fundamental questions surrounding the economic constitution, such as the separation between the State and the market, the scope for Member States to engage in regulatory competition, and the tension between market and nonmarket concerns.

One of the criticisms against the new rules applicable to the granting of State aid to finance the provision of services of general economic interest in the "Almunia package" is that enforcement is likely to be their weakest point. Similarly, in the more general setting of the "private" enforcement of State aid rules, the 2006 Study on the Enforcement of State Aid Law at National Level recommended that the European Commission created a common minimum standard of remedies applicable in all EU jurisdictions, stressing that "one possible means of creating such a standard would be to adopt a remedies directive for State aid cases, which could be modelled on the remedies directive for procurement cases".Building up on these considerations, the extent to which the existing remedies within the system for the enforcement of EU public procurement rules provide an effective platform to enforce EU State aid rules (and, more specifically, those for the financing of SGEIs) before public procurement review bodies and courts is assessed. The paper describes the main groups of cases where public procurement litigation "phagocytises" State aid considerations. It then proceeds to explore the viability, from an EU law perspective, of configuring public procurement review bodies and courts as "State aid courts" for the purposes of the simultaneous enforcement of both sets of rules in a single setting of "private" litigation. It also submits that using the public procurement system in this way provides effective remedies for the enforcement of the Almunia Package for the financing of SGEIs.

This is the third book in the series Legal Issues of Services of General Interest. The book focuses upon a set of research questions on the recent developments in the emergence of services of general interest (SGIs) as a distinct EU concept. This includes, inter alia, the emergence of universal service obligations and the way they are regulated in the EU in primary and secondary law, the range of soft law communications adopted by the Commission to create a distinctive EU concept of SGIs, the residual role of hard law in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the special problems created by Social Services of General Economic Interest and the interaction of procurement and state aid law with SGIs. A new perspective is offered in this book: some of the issues faced by the EU in accommodating SGIs into a regulatory framework are found also in the policy of the WTO and in least developed countries (LDCs).

This book was originally published by Claeys and Casteels, now formally part of Edward Elgar Publishing. With the adoption of its 2005 Action Plan, the European Commission has launched a major reform of its State Aid policy. New Rules on research and development and innovation, risk capital, regional policy and services of general economic interest have recently been adopted. This book explains in detail the substance and procedure established by the EU Treaty rules on State Aid, as well as covering these major changes. It also provides an exhaustive guide to the major upheaval of the Commission's State Aid policy that has taken place in recent years. This second edition of the State aid volumes constitutes a state of the art description and analysis of all aspects of the State aid discipline. Above all, it sets out all the novelties of the State Aid Modernisation programme which was launched in 2012 and completed in summer 2014. The new edition reviews all major guidelines, frameworks and legislation, including the Procedural Regulation, the Enabling Regulation, the General block exemption Regulation and the de minimis Regulation. The book explains the Commission's overall approach to compatibility of State aid, describes the new common principles for assessment and discusses the new requirements for evaluation and transparency. It gives a detailed account of the new rules on research, development and innovation, energy and environment (including the ETS), risk capital and risk finance, regional development, and rescue and restructuring of firms in difficulty. The book also explains the first rules ever adopted by the Commission on important projects of common European interest. It discusses the relationship between State aid and the Structural Funds, in particular in light of the new use of those funds via financial instruments. All the main economic sectors affected by the modernisation programme are discussed, including broadband, cinema, public service broadcasting, aviation, maritime and land transport, agriculture and fisheries. A special section is dedicated to services of general economic interest, introducing the new SGEI package and explaining how it has been applied. The section on banking provides a full account of how the rules and enforcement practice have evolved since the start of the financial crisis and discusses the issues which arise with the introduction of the new regulatory framework for a European Banking Union. The notion of aid section takes account of the most recent jurisprudence of the Union Courts and the Commission's decisional practice, thereby addressing issues frequently faced by practitioners and public authorities. Above all, the new edition builds on the hands-on expertise of many authors who have been dealing with State aid cases in the recent past.

The EC State Aid Regime will enable readers without any knowledge in the area, an easy access to the notion of state aid, the key concepts of the state aid procedure and the legal remedies. At the same time, it provides state aid experts with specific and in-depth analysis of subjects such as infrastructure funding, the market investor test, rescue and restructuring aid, state aid and risk capital, regional aid, aid for environmental protection, state aid and emission trading, state aid to the aviation and shipbuilding sectors, state aid in the fields of agriculture and fisheries, state aid to culture and sports, and the international dimension of state aid. The important area of state aid to services of general economic interest receives special attention in a separate chapter. The growing importance of economic analysis in the area of state aid and the ongoing discussion of the state aid reform have also been addressed in two separate chapters in the book. The team of contributors is composed of practitioners, scientists, economists and civil servants of different administrative bodies and the European Commission. The EC State Aid Regime will be a great resource for legal practitioners, national judges, civil servants, academic and students, who want to acquire or enhance their knowledge in this expanding field of law.