Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 29th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG9: The Rule of Law & Public Administration (Physical) Author(s) Ildikó Bartha University of Debrecen Debrecen Hungary Title EU STATE AID RULES IN THE AREA OF SERVICES OF GENERAL INTERESTS: AN ANALYSIS FROM CITIZENS’ PERSPECTIVE File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Ildikó Bartha Abstract The right to have access to public services (in EU terminology ’services of general interests’, SGIs and ‘services of general economic interests’, SGEIs) is of crucial importance for every citizen. It has been also confirmed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Due to the evolution of the legal framework in this area, the EU is an important supranational actor in the regulation of such services today, even for those provided at the local level. The paper aims to highlight the challenges of application of those EU law rules which directly or indirectly concern public service provision in the Member States. In doing so, it also considers the possible ways as citizens (consumers of SGIs) may be involved to influence the content of these rules. The analysis focuses, in particular, on the development of the European Union's state aid regime in this area. EU state aid rules come into play when SGIs are regarded as an economic activity on the market and are (wholly or partially) financed through public resources. Such compensation measures are also subject to the European Commission’s legal acts and policy documents adopted as part of its 2005 and 2012 SGEI packages. Based on the Commission’s legislation, the paper also highlights the conditions under which public service compensation does not constitute state aid under the exceptional circumstances created by the COVID-19 outbreak. We argue that, despite the fact that the effective allocation of state resources has a fundamental importance in responding to pressing public concerns about the quality and accessibility of SGIs, citizens have a limited and rather indirect role, both at the national and the EU level, in influencing policies and decision-making processes for regulating state aids for public service provision. The practice of the EU institutions (Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union, CJEU) and national reports also show that there are severe challenges when applying and enforcing EU state aid rules relevant to SGIs/SGEIs. Problems may rightly be derived from the terminology itself since there is a quite unclear borderline between the respective terms (like economic activities and non-economic activities). In this context, a particular emphasis is laid to the role and degree of discretionary powers left to national authorities in defining the underlying concepts and measures needed to take to fulfil the Member States' public service obligations. We can see that national competence is quite broad in this respect and has even been extended by the Commission’s recent legislative acts and practice related to state aid measures taken in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. These factors may also influence (directly or indirectly) the conditions for access to SGI’s provided in the EU Member States – often not towards better serving citizens’ needs and interests. The paper is based on comparative policy investigations and analysis of the European legal framework including the practice of the Commission and the case-law of the CJEU. The analysis is also built on national SGI reports, as well as on the results of a consultation process, initiated and closed by the Commission in 2019, which aimed at collecting evidence and views from citizens and stakeholders in order to assess the effectiveness of the 2012 SGEI package with regard to health and social services. These findings will be also assessed in light of the results of Eurobarometer surveys measuring citizens’ satisfaction in particular sectors (like health services).
