CECOP

The rapporteur insists on the fact that the directive services, which is in an ongoing re-examination process, should not call into question the competence for each member state to organise and promote service of general interest and that, to avoid that risk, adoption of the Services Directive makes necessary a legislative framework for services of general interest.

He regretted also that an authoritative distinction between services of general "economic" and "non-economic" interest was missing... a pivotal precondition under which the application of especially new European legislation remains unclear for providers of services of general interest. On 16 May 2006, the European Parliament published a draft report on services of general interest, drafted on the basis of the aforesaid document, rapporteur: Bernard Rapkay.

The previous arguments appear again in it, with even more strength, in the explanatory statement section: Call for action: greater legal certainty for public services : “To safeguard services of general interest and put an end to legal uncertainty, Europe needs - without delay, and in parallel to current work on the broader Services Directive - a general legal framework for public services, complementary to existing sectoral and national provisions, and introduced on the basis of joint decision-making with the European Parliament”.

When the text will be examined for a second reading at the European Parliament, it would be maybe useful to recall that text.

The directive services