Brussels, 28/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on 28 January, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) presented a joint report entitled “Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) in the Internal Market in the 21st Century- The New Deal of the Reform Treaty”.
This report comes under the heading of a discussion which has been raging for several months between the Commission on the one hand, and the social partners on the other (EUROPE 9548). “This debate has the potential to be as explosive as the one on the Bolkestein directive”, the nickname given to the directive on services and the internal market, said the President of the CoR, Michel Delebarre, opening the session.
At the centre of the debate: the protocol on the services of general interest which is annexed to the reform treaty. The protocol, which stresses the “importance of the services of general interest” (SGI), which include the SSGI, recognises that the SGI must respond “to the needs of the users as far as possible”, stresses their vital “diversity” and stresses that they should guarantee “a high level of quality, security and accessability, equality of treatment and the promotion of universal access and the rights of users”. However, in the view of the Commission, this protocol is an adequate and sufficient response to the requirements of the SSGI. This is a vision not at all shared by the main groups in question, the CoR and the EESC. “When Mr Barroso declared that the debate was closed, what he in fact did was reopen it”, explained Portuguese Socialist MEP, Joel Hasse Ferreira. “This protocol equates to a mandate given to the Commission to legislate in this field”, explained Mr Delebarre, relating this question to the European year for combating poverty and social exclusion, scheduled for 2010.
For her part, Evelyne Pichot, president of the standing group of the EESC on SSGI, announced that her group was soon to take position on this question. The document will be sent to the Luxembourg Prime Minister before being included at the forthcoming Competitiveness Council. The text is expected to stress the need for a framework-directive for SGI, coupled with sectorial rules.
Laurent Ghékiere, a representative to the EU of the Social Union for Habitation and co-author of the report, stressed the need for specific legislation on the SSGI, and criticised the attitude of the Commission on this dossier. “Contrary to what the Commission says, the debate is far from being closed. We must now adapt Community law”. As for the Council, “it is practising a policy of hiding its head in the sand”, said Mr Ghékiere.
Mr Hasse Ferreira stressed the complex nature of the situation, calling for a “legal simplification of the situation”. “The protocol brings elements of clarification”, he said, “but not enough”. He went on to conclude: “I do not understand why we have so little clarity in the field of social services, when we can have it in plenty of other fields”.
“By means of a pirouette effect”, Jean-Louis Destans of France, rapporteur on the dossier for the CoR, “the Commission has denied the need to set in place specific legal provisions on the SSGI”, he continued, going on to criticise the hotline set up by the Commission last week to answer questions on the SSGI. “I find this procedure almost insulting”, said Mr Destans. He called on the representations of the authorities concerned to bring pressure to bear on the national authorities to ensure that the Commission takes this subject in hand. “If it is carried out incorrectly, the process of transposition of the 'services' directive may be dramatic”, he warned.
It is in the next few months to come that the Member States will be transposing the “services” directive. The directive 123/2006/EC, which was adopted at the end of 2006, excludes the following social services: social housing, child care, support for families and people in situations of need and services provided free of charge by religious charity organisations (see EUROPE 9307). This means that the Member States will be able to choose whether or not to include SSGI when they transpose the legislation. What is at stake is the option to relax the authority for payment.
Under fire from its critics, the Commission reacted, in the person of Concetta Cultrera, of the Directorate General for Employment, Social Services and Equal Opportunities. “If the rules which exist are correctly applied”, she said, “they will guarantee the quality of services. When SSGI fall under the scope of application of the competition rules, this does not mean that they must be privatised”. Defending the hotline system, she said that critics must “give the system time to work”.
“But we have been discussing these issues for four years”, retorted Mr Destans. “And there are just as many problems as there were when the treaty was adopted, we have had to include a protocol. Find another way of answering the expectations of the social partners than by a hotline!”.
All those taking part in the debate called on the French Presidency to intervene in this debate in order to relaunch the political process in the second half of 2008. A conference on SSGI is set to take place in Paris on 28 and 29 October this year. (L.B.S.)