Brussels, 24/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 24 July the Council of the EU formally adopted its common position on the “internal market services directive” following the political agreement of the Competitiveness Council at the end of May (EUROPE 9201). Belgium and Lithuania abstained. The common position is now being sent to the European Parliament for a second reading. The objective of the Finnish presidency and that of the EP rapporteur, Social Democrat Evelyne Gebhardt is to obtain adoption of the directive before the end of 2006. In a press release the Council indicated that its common position is “strictly in line with the opinion in first reading at the EP and the amended Commission proposal” (EUROPE 9133 and 9167) . With regard to the field of application, it respected the clear reduction in the field of the legislative proposal's application. This does not threaten the existence of public monopolies or interfere with social and work rights in Member States or prevail over European sectoral legislation and excludes the “non-economic services of general interest”, social services, transport and ports, audio-visual services including the cinema industry, gambling, temporary job agencies and private security services. The Services of General Economic Interest (SGEI) are included in the directive but will not obtain provisions on cross-border provision of services.
The Council is ratifying the principle of free provision of services, which came out of the parliamentary compromise and which gets rid of the principle of the country of origin. To get the support of the majority of Member States that consider that the EP compromise went too far in the sense of protecting national interest, the Council introduced a “screening “mechanism of national restrictions on cross-border provision, which will be set up for political, health, public security reasons or employment conditions.
Member States also agreed on binding administrative cooperation measures. They are committed to providing mutual assistance and cooperating in order to guarantee inspection of services provided or offered. National investigations will have to be well founded and information provided can only be used for responding to a clearly designated request. Five years after the entry into force of the directive, the Commission will present a complete report on the implementation of this legislative act.