Public Services in EU Law

Public Services in EU Law
Author: Wolf Sauter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107066123

Comprehensive analysis showing that utilities and welfare services are important building blocks for the EU social market economy.

The European Union Diplomatic Service

The European Union Diplomatic Service
Author: Caterina Carta
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113666906X

This book is the first to comprehensively examine the institutional dynamics that characterize the diplomatic system set up by the European Communities and the European Union – currently the foremost experiment in non-state diplomacy. It analyses European Union Diplomatic Service’s work on foreign policy and external economic relations, both in Brussels and in the Commission’s Delegations across the world.

Public Services and the European Union

Public Services and the European Union
Author: Laura Nistor
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9067048054

Politically sensitive and economically important, welfare services such as health care, health insurance and education have opened up a heated debate in the EU. The application of EU law to welfare services raises discontent from the part of the Member States who perceive their systems to be under threat. Resisting to the application of the EU law is sometimes seen as part of protecting those values. This book suggests that this resistance is largely unjustified. EU law is not damaging to welfare systems, but it provides adequate balancing mechanisms to ensure that all interests are protected. The approach taken in analysing the impact of EU law on welfare services is to look at the negative integration process and answer the questions related to the extent to which EU law applies to welfare services and the kinds of safeguards the Court offers for these services. The proportionality principle distinguishes itself as the central element in balancing national and Community interests. Being part of the broader integration process, negative harmonization creates legislative lacunae, and therefore, this book also looks at alternative solutions to the negative harmonization process, namely positive and soft law.

Market Integration and Public Services in the European Union

Market Integration and Public Services in the European Union
Author: Marise Cremona
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191616834

In a period when the nature and scope of the European internal market is hotly contested, this collection offers a topical analysis of the most pressing issues relating to market integration and public services in the EU. As the debate continues over the balance between state control and market freedom, questions are also raised about the relationship between EU regulation and national policy choices and the 'joint responsibility' of the Union and the Member States. Outlining the most important current issues relating to market integration and public services in the EU, this book also addresses the underlying, systemic questions of the relation between public services and markets, and services and the consumer. Chapters also examine the application of state aids and procurement law to public services. The final two chapters focus on two public service sectors where the mix of Treaty rules, case law, and legislation has operated in rather different ways: public service media and health services

Policy Transfer in European Union Governance

Policy Transfer in European Union Governance
Author: Simon Bulmer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2007-05-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134188471

This new book presents a clear conceptual framework for understanding the transfer of policy ideas between EU states, together with an empirical study of regulatory change within European utilities. Policy transfer is a new instrument for understanding EU policy-making. This volume shows how the nature of institutions, interdependence between trans-national and national jurisdictions and social systems, relate policy actors across geographical boundaries, identifying four basic types of EU policy transfer and learning: ‘uploading’– how member states compete to shape the EU agenda in line with their own institutional arrangements and policy preferences ‘downloading’– how states adapt to changing EU incentives and constraints ‘socialization’ – how EU policy norms are internalized in the belief systems of domestic actors ‘information exchange’ between national actors in the course of EU interactions leading to a horizontal diffusion of policy ideas. The authors use an institutionalist perspective to show how these forms of policy transfer operate across the diverse systems of governance found across the EU. Policy Transfer in European Union Governance will be of great interest to students and scholars of European Union politics and policy, comparative public policy and political economy.

Public Procurement and the EU Competition Rules

Public Procurement and the EU Competition Rules
Author: Albert Sánchez Graells
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011-01-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1782253599

Shortlisted for the 2012 Prix Vogel in Economic Law. Public procurement and competition law are both important fields of EU law and policy, intimately intertwined in the creation of the internal market. Hitherto their close connection has been noted, but not closely examined. This new work is the most comprehensive attempt to date to explain the many ways in which these fields, often considered independent of one another, interact and overlap in the creation of the internal market. In this process of convergence between competition and public procurement law , the need for this joint study is clearly apparent. As such the book asks whether competition law principles inform or condition public procurement rules, and whether they are adequate to ensure that competition is not distorted in markets where public procurement is particularly significant. The book moves away from the classical focus of public procurement on the activities of private actors, developing instead an analytical framework for the appraisal of the market behaviour of the public buyer from a competition perspective. The analysis is both legal and economic. Proceeding through a careful assessment of the general rules of competition and public procurement, the book constantly tests the efficacy of the rules in competition and public procurement against a standard of the proper functioning of undistorted competition in the market for public procurement.

Regulating Services in the European Union

Regulating Services in the European Union
Author: Vassilis Hatzopoulos
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2012-04-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191627534

Across the EU, services are the cornerstone of the modern economy, accounting for over 70% of national GDPs and over 90% of new jobs created. Fostering trade in services has, accordingly, become central to the EU's vision for developing the internal market. Yet regulating services and their international trade is notoriously complex, and controversial. For years the EU's efforts were limited to sector-specific regulation in key areas, until the adoption of the general Services Directive in 2006. Since then, confronted by the limited success of traditional legal intervention, the EU's attentions have shifted to alternative forms of regulation. This book looks back on the historical development of services law, discusses the nature of impediments to trade in services in the EU, and explains the basic rules and principles applicable to such trade. It also examines the recent development of alternative regulatory methods, such as networking, the use of common standards, private regulation, self-regulation, open methods of coordination, and administrative cooperation. Taking a broad perspective and placing services regulation within its economic context, the author offers a thorough evaluation of current regulatory methods alongside the alternative methods which could be deployed. The book is the first to provide an overview of the regulation of services in the EU.

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision

Socio-Economic Human Rights in Essential Public Services Provision
Author: Marlies Hesselman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317209893

There is a clear overlap between securing socio-economic human rights for all persons and arranging adequate access to essential public services across society. Both are necessary to realise thriving, inclusive societies, with adequate living standards for all, based on human dignity. This edited volume brings together the two topics for the first time. In particular, it identifies the common challenges for essential public services provision and socio-economic human rights realisation, and it explores how socio-economic rights law can be harnessed to reinforce better access to services. An important aim of this book is to understand how international socio-economic human rights law and guideposts can be used and strengthened to improve access to services, and assess socio-economic legal and policy decisions. The volume includes contributions from different continents, on a range of different services, and engages with the realities of different regulatory settings. After an introduction that sets out the most important challenges for universal access to services – including sufficient resources mobilisation, private actor involvement and regulation, or the need for improved checks and balances – the book goes on to discuss current issues in services provision and socio-economic rights, as well as explores the place and role of private business actors in the provision of services. In particular, it assesses how the responsibility and accountability of such actors for human rights can be improved . The final part of the book narrows in on the under-explored human rights concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘accountability’, as essential prerequisites for better ‘checks and balances’. Overall, this volume presents a unique and powerful illustration of how socio-economic human rights law supports improved access to essential public services for all.

Public Services and EU Competition Law

Public Services and EU Competition Law
Author: Daniele Gallo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000589293

This monograph, which was also designed as a short reference book for specialized undergraduate and graduate courses on EU law, intends to shed light on, and legally frame, the evolution of the doctrine of services of general economic interest (SGEIs). The book emphasizes the pivotal role played by SGEIs in striking a fair balance between market and social objectives. To this end, the book claims, first of all, that SGEIs have a dual nature inasmuch as they act as a limitation to/derogation from the free market and, simultaneously, as a value and positive obligation addressed at national authorities, undertakings, and EU institutions. The EU notions of access to public services and universal service are the clearest signal of such phenomenon. Secondly, the book claims that the transfer of competences from the Union to the Member States and the reaffirmation of Member States’ sovereignty in crucial sectors of the economy are not the only solutions to foster social rights. In fact, this narrative is apt to undermine the foundations, spirit, and purpose of the process of European integration, especially at a time like the present, when new forms of populism and anti-Europeanism are on the rise, and when a European response is imperative to counter the spread of the coronavirus in European countries. The book concludes that SGEIs’ regulation is an area of law where the EU institutions have generally successfully put into action and consolidated the social market economy principles on which the EU was founded. This is even further proof that the EU is not merely the reflection of interests linked to market completion, but also and foremost a ‘Community based on the rule of law’. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in EU Law, European Public Law and EU competition law.