Vienna, 21/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - “I cannot say today” if the Commission will launch an initiative of legislation on social services of general interest, things are still under discussion, said Vladimir Spidla a the European Conference on social services organised by the Austrian Presidency in Vienna on 20 April. The European Social Affairs and Employment Commissioner presented the broad lines of the communication on social services of general interest (SSGI) which the Commission is due to adopt on 26 April. He announced, notably, a list of criteria which would help Member States to decide if a service was an SSGI. The Austrian Presidency considered that the Commission, in its amended draft directive on services in the internal market, restricted the range of social service exclusions from the scope of the directive in relation to the compromise voted by the European Parliament. Finland, which will take over the Presidency of the EU Council in July, stressed the difficulty in defining this type of services.
“Next week”, the Commission will adopt “a communication on social services of general interest,” said Mr Spidla. While not saying the Commission would launch a specific initiative of legislation, he nonetheless acknowledged the need for a “stable political and legal framework” for the sector. According to the Commissioner, the main ideas in the forthcoming communication were: 1) the announcement of measures on social protection to enable social services to do more to promote social insertion; 2) social services of general interest corresponded to services of general interest (SGI) insofar as they obeyed such principles as universality, continuity and contribution to social cohesion; 3) the importance of the subsidiarity principle according to which Member States play a leading role in this field, particularly with regard to funding. Mr Spidla said the forthcoming communication was only a “first stage”. Consultation with Member States would continue, he added, to refine the “list” of criteria for identifying social services and ease drawing up national legislation in the light of Community legislation. The Commission promised a follow-up by means of regular reports.
During the intense debates on the “services” directive, the fear was expressed that, through the EU, welfare payments could suffer, said Sigisbert Dolinshek, Austrian Secretary of State for Social Security, the Generations and Consumer Protection, at the conference. He said the EP had thwarted these plans, by backing the deletion of social services from the services directive (see EUROPE 9133). According to Mr Dolinshek, the Commission had, however, limited the range of exclusions from the scope of the directive in its amended proposal adopted in early April (see EUROPE 9167). And he concluded that the arguments on each side had to be weighed up, at a time when the EU was meeting a great deal of scepticism from its citizens. When asked by EUROPE about what Mr Dolinshek had said, Mr Spidla said he simply thought the Commission had brought legal clarification. The EP compromise excluded social services, such as social housing, childcare services and help for persons and families in need. Within the Council, some delegations feared that the Commission's wording was not precise and did not cover some services, such as those for people with disability, said an Austrian diplomatic source. The risk would be to allow the Court of Justice decide which social service was, or was not, to be excluded.
“The very definition of terms is not clear: social services cover different things in different Member States,” said Leila Kostiainen, Finnish Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Health. And even within these social services, it was not clear what was private and what was public, she added. She drew attention to the existence of public-private partnerships in this sector where a State may be responsible for providing the social services, but use private contractors deliver these services. Ms Kostiainen, believing that these services derive from human rights, wondered how to reconcile human rights for all with market freedom in terms of service provision. Private, commercial markets put general interest at risk, she felt.
As a sector undergoing massive changes, social services have to confront the challenges of an ageing population, the continuing increase in need and changes in the very nature of the work. From 2050 the proportion of the population aged between 64 and 79 will increase by 44%, of over 79 by 180%, Mr Dolinshek pointed out, insisting also on the economic potential of this sector in job creation. On growing funding pressures on public authorities, Mr Spidla spoke of increasing decentralisation of national-level responsibilities to regional and local administrative levels and the changing role of public authorities in this field, from provider to regulator of social services.
Michel Delebarre calls for framework directive on services of interest
At the Vienna conference, the President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) Michel Delebarre argued for a framework directive on services of general interest to be adopted. “This would be a real scenario where the amendment of the European social model could be upwards rather than down. It would be a real legal guarantee for all regional and local authorities that ensure social justice for our European citizens,” he said, going on, “the legal security of operators responsible for the management of services of general interest, in whatever field, and that of the public authorities charged with defining and monitoring these essential services will be strengthened”. Mr Delebarre hoped for greater management autonomy for non-competitive services of general interest: “Through a framework directive on services of general interest and the guarantee of greater management autonomy for non-competitive services of general interest, the European Commission would not be identified with the simple desire to liberalise, but would prove it was able to give regional and local authorities a legal framework allowing them to manage safely their services of general interest. It would also be a real scenario where the amendment of the European social model could, instead of downwards, be upwards”. Mr Delebarre, who is also President of the Union Social pour l'Habitat en France said that, even if some social and general interest activities did not form part of the EU's areas of responsibility, there could be an “interaction with Community policies”. This was the case for social housing, he said, “since the EU intervenes very actively through arrangements on state aid”. He felt it would be preferable to define a common base of requirements and tasks to be fulfilled by the services of general interest rather than refer to case-law: “It is a matter of security for citizens and operators, whether public or private”.