Services of general economic interest (SGEI) are a legal category in the EC Treaty that is designed to enable proportionate restrictions on the Treaty's market freedoms (including competition) in so far as necessary to attain legitimate public policy objectives defined (in the first instance) at...

Public services must play a very important part in the local public administration of Romania and of all the other European states, in the light of the significant effects they have on the economic, administrative, social and political sphere. The present paper focuses on emphasizing the need to...

This is a review of lt;igt;The Limits of Competition Law: Markets and Public Serviceslt;/igt; (Oxford 2005), by Tony Prosser, a Professor of Public Law at the University of Bristol, England. When competition laws and other public service principles are in tension, can courts avoid a collision or...

Advantage is one of the four cumulative criteria that determine whether the EU state aid regime is applicable. Here we look at advantage in relation to compensation for public service obligations. In its Altmark ruling of 2003 the CJEU has fashioned a four part test that, if met, means that the...

There is a popular perception that a culture of bureaucracy in the public sector is pervasive. Public servants have a reputation for being too preoccupied with following a strict interpretation of the rules to worry about satisfying the consumers that rely on their services. Many would consider...

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"...

Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) have been subject to long debate. The Altmark-ruling in 2003 aimed at providing clarity with respect to how SGEI should be treated in state aid. Since 2008, however, evidence was missing how these criteria are applied in practice by the CFI. As the...

National interest, also as a critisism against the pradigm of New Public Management (NPM), is very much emphasised nowadays in public policies, even in sector ones. This article is about a removal from the classical meaning of general (public) interest to that new approach represented by certain...

Where the provision of healthcare services involves undertakings (entities engaged in the provision of goods and/or services on a market) these are subject to the EU state aid rules. State aid questions are raised in particular regarding the compensation for public service provision, which may...

This paper is a contribution to the 2nd edition of Craig and de Búrca, The Evolution of EU Law. It highlights key trends in EU law in the last ten to fifteen years, as regards the regulation of network industries and of services of general economic interest (SGEIs) more generally. Our central...