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.

"Public services or more precisely, to use the EU's terminology, services of general economic interest have traditionally played a vital role in the normal functioning of the society in the Member States. Yet, their equity or non-economic components have often caused tensions with the internal market components, such as the free movement of production factors, competition and economic efficiency. To put it simply, their place within the internal market has been for a long time a persistent irritant in the European public debate. However, the situation has changed over time, in particular after the Lisbon Treaty which introduced the "new context" which seems to be more friendly to services of general economic interest than ever before. In this regard it is worth noting that, given the place occupied by services of general economic interest in the shared values of the EU as well as their role in promoting social and territorial cohesion, the EU and the Member States, each within their respective powers and within the scope of application of the Treaties, must take care that such services operate on the basis of principles and conditions, particularly economic and financial conditions, which enable them to fulfil their missions. It is a kind of joint responsibility for the effective provision of services of general economic interest which indicates that also the EU institutions must accept them as a building block of the European (market) integration process. In fact, the recent case law seems to support this thesis. The Post-Lisbon state of play in the discussed field is in the center of the book but for practical reasons it also offers a broader view to a reader. The book consists of the three interrelated chapters which relate in one way or another to services of general economic interest and corresponding supranational legal framework. The latter is par excellence topic of the EU (law). The introductory chapter is designed as the EU law toolkit which explains the values and aims of the EU, its competences and institutional structure, the fundamental legal principles and concepts which are of particular importance for services of general economic interest. This is followed by the second chapter, which sets the scene by explaining the socio-political background at the both levels, national and supranational. In addition, the second chapter discusses the concept of services of general economic interest and related concepts. The third chapter is the very core of the book because it discusses the present EU's legal framework for services of general economic interest. In addition to the general and sector-specific hard law, it includes most relevant case law and soft law. The main emphasis is, however, on the primary (constitutional) EU law, predominantly on the part relating market competition, e.g. Art. 101-109 TFEU, and on the part which directly address services of general economic interest, e.g. Art. 14 and the related Protocol, Art. 106(2) TFEU, and Art. 36 CFREU. As such, the book could be interesting for all those who, in one way or another, deal with public services or services of general economic interest. Namely, the book is primarily oriented towards experts dealing with those services within the EU, however, due to its structure as well as gradualist and systematical approach, it can reach other readers as well and enable them to understand the EU's legal framework for services of general economic interest"--

This book examines the legacy of the 2003 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Altmark. This case changed the direction of how Services of General and Economic Interest (SGEI) should be funded in the EU against a background of liberalisation, and the need for efficiency and global competitiveness. The book examines the European Commission’s response to the Altmark ruling in the measures known as the ‘Altmark-Monti-Kroes Package’ and charts the review of this package from 2009 culminating in a new package of measures, known as the ‘Almunia Package’. The seemingly technocratic idea of a review of the ‘Altmark-Monti-Kroes Package’ could not have anticipated the demanding and changed economic and constitutional context of the EU in 2009. It is in this light that the authors in this book explore in great detail the different components of the new ‘Almunia Package’ of measures introduced in 2011-2012, offering a critical review and highlighting where the future direction of the regulation of SGEI may lead as the EU struggles in an economic climate of austerity to balance a new constitutional dimension of a ‘highly competitive social market economy’ with a modernisation agenda for the single market.

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.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the interaction between Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) and EU competition law, covering in particular Article 106 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and state aid rules. It also takes the telecommunications, postal service and transport sectors as case studies, taking into account the technological, economic and political backgrounds to these sectors. The area of SGEI has undergone fundamental developments over the past three decades and the most recent changes in the Lisbon Treaty, recognizing SGEI as a shared value and granting explicit competence to the EU, mark its constitutional significance. The key issue is how to balance economic values underlying competitive markets and non-economic public service values such as universal access to essential services. The essence of the question is the relationship between the market and the state. This controversial issue is addressed through a critical analysis of a number of landmark EU Court judgments and Commission decisions over the decades. Offering a clear appreciation of the evolution of the EU regulatory framework on SGEI that lays out the limits and boundaries within which the Member States define, organize and fund SGEI, the book is particularly aimed at academics with a research interest in the interaction between public services and EU competition law, but as it also demonstrates clearly how the application of EU competition law has transformed the public utilities sectors, it will be of interest to law makers, legal professionals and policy makers as well. Dr. Lei Zhu is a Research Associate at the Institute of International Law at Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. He studied at the Institute for Competition & Procurement Studies of the Bangor University Law School in Wales, United Kingdom, where he obtained his PhD in law in 2015.

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).

The EU has limited legislative competence in the field of social law. However, the Member States are increasingly modernizing social services and social (welfare) protection, attempting to make social services more efficient by increasingly looking to the market for the provision of such services. This policy move brings social services into the radar of EU law. The EU response to this sensitive issue has resulted in a piecemeal and fragmented approach towards the treatment of a new policy area of Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) in EU law and policy. This book is a first contribution towards charting how SSGI have emerged as a special category of SGI in the EU, the reaction of the Member States and stake-holders and how policy is being made through new governance processes, carve-outs and safe havens in legislation and soft law, especially in the light of the new values of the EU introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon 2009. It takes an inter-disciplinary approach and will be of interest to lawyers, economists and political scientists who are interested in EU policy-making as well as practioners, EU and national policy-makers. Ulla Neergaard is Professor of EU law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Erika Szyszczak is a Jean Monnet Professor of European Law ad personam, Professor of European Competition and Labour Law at the University of Leicester, Barrister, Littleton Chambers, UK. Johan W. van de Gronden is Professor of European Law at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Markus Krajewski is Professor of Public and International law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.