Brussels, 21/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 26 April, the Commission will adopt a communication on social services of general interest in the European Union. The adoption of this document will be a first step towards a more systematic taking into account of the specific characteristics of social services at European level and will also provide a base on which the Commission can continue consulting Member States, service providers and users. The Communication, which follows the White Paper on services of general interest, is the result of close cooperation with the member countries and civil society organisations, allowing the Commission to make an initial inventory of the stakes and issues raised, the Commission states.
In concrete terms, the communication will be structured in the following way:
1) Social services, pillars of society and of the European economy. In addition to health services strictly speaking, such services may be placed in one of two groups, the Commission explains: - legal systems and complementary social welfare systems in their various forms of organisation (mutual benefit insurance or professional), covering health risks (health, old age, accidents at work, unemployment, retirement, disablement); - and the other essential services provided directly to the persons concerned. These services provide personalised aid to facilitate inclusion in society and to ensure that persons covered are entitled to their fundamental rights (assistance for resolving crises such as indebtedness, unemployment, drug abuse and familiar division, and aid for social insertion, social housing, etc.). According to the communication, the organisational criteria of social services stipulate that such services should: - function on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, have a polyvalent and personalised nature to ensure fundamental human rights and protect the most vulnerable persons, be non-profit-seeking, have voluntary and benevolent participation, and have a marked anchoring in a local cultural tradition, as well as complex and diversified links with public powers and users. The Commission notes that all the Member States have begun to modernise their social services with a view to coming to grips with the strained relationship between universality, quality and financial sustainability. Many Community initiatives and actions (political and financial) already support this modernisation of social services, especially through the European Social Fund (ESF) and ERDF. The EU also intervenes at legislative level for social services. Such European involvement will also be along the lines of social services modernisation, through greater transparency and enhanced effectiveness in organisation and financing. It urges for the correct use of financial resources earmarked for social policy and contributes to achieving greater variety and quality of services, the Commission states in its communication.
2) Application of Community rules in the social services field. In line with the principle of subsidiarity, Member States are free to define missions of general interest and establish principles of organisation arising from them for these same services. This freedom is recognised by the Treaty and the jurisprudence of the EU Court of Justice but it must operate in full transparency and not be detrimental to the notion of general interest. In exercising this freedom, Member States must also take Community law into account, the Commission stresses. When it is a question of services of an economic kind, compatibility must be ensured between their means of organisation and other areas of Community law. In order to understand the concrete conditions of implementing the Community regulatory framework, the Commission's communication concerns the most frequent situations: (1) the choice of a partial or complete delegation for a social mission, the management of a social service in the context of public-private partnership; (2) recourse to public financial compensation in order to balance the cost of accomplishing a social mission, costs that would not be entailed by a company following market criteria alone; (3) recourse to market regulation: should private operators provide a social service, the State may decide to provide a framework for market functioning in order to ensure the accomplishment of general interest objectives; and (4) compatibility of the accomplishment of a mission of general interest with market rules must be assessed on a case by case basis.
3) Better follow-up and accompaniment of social services of general interest in the EU: indepth consultation is needed on indicative criteria aimed at reflecting the specific characteristics of the social services as services of general interest, as well as follow-up of the situation of social services of general interest in the EU in the form of bi-annual reports, the Commission states.