Financing Services of General Economic Interest

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   • Erika Szyszczak

   Pages 1-32

3. The Altmark Legacy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 33-33

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   2. The Impact of Altmark: The European Commission Case Law Responses

      • Max Klasse

      Pages 35-51

   3. The European Courts’ Jurisprudence After Altmark; Evolution or Devolution?

      • Hans Vedder, Marijn Holwerda

      Pages 53-67

   4. The Role of Procurement and SGEI After Altmark

      • Ian Clarke

      Pages 69-84

4. Reform of the Altmark-Monti-Kroes Package

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 85-85

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   2. The European Commission’s Reform Strategy

      • Stéphane Rodrigues

      Pages 87-98

   3. The Almunia Package: Legal Constraints, Policy Procedures, and Political Choices

      • Tim Maxian Rusche

      Pages 99-124

   4. The Almunia Package: State Aid and Services of General Economic Interest

      • José Luís Buendía Sierra, José Manuel Panero Rivas

      Pages 125-148

   5. Financing Services of General Economic Interest: The European Commission’s Economic Tests

      • James Kavanagh

      Pages 149-159

   6. The Commission’s Modernisation Agenda for Procurement and SGEI

      • Albert Sanchez Graells

      Pages 161-181

5. Exclusions from the Package

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 183-183

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   2. The Altmark Update and Social Services: Toward a European Approach

      • Johan W. van de Gronden, Catalin Stefan Rusu

      Pages 185-216

   3. Transport

      • Tim Maxian Rusche, Silvia Schmidt

      Pages 217-248

   4. This Won’t Hurt a Bit: The Commission’s Approach to Services of General Economic Interest and State Aid to Hospitals

      • Leigh Hancher, Wolf Sauter

      Pages 249-272

   5. Conclusion

      • Johan W. van de Gronden

      Pages 273-284

6. Back Matter

   Pages 285-295

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This book examines the legacy of the 2003 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Altmark. This case changed the direction of how Services of General and Economic Interest (SGEI) should be funded in the EU against a background of liberalisation, and the need for efficiency and global competitiveness. The book examines the European Commission’s response to the Altmark ruling in the measures known as the ‘Altmark-Monti-Kroes Package’ and charts the review of this package from 2009 culminating in a new package of measures, known as the ‘Almunia Package’. The seemingly technocratic idea of a review of the ‘Altmark-Monti-Kroes Package’ could not have anticipated the demanding and changed economic and constitutional context of the EU in 2009. It is in this light that the authors in this book explore in great detail the different components of the new ‘Almunia Package’ of measures introduced in 2011-2012, offering a critical review and highlighting where the future direction of the regulation of SGEI may lead as the EU struggles in an economic climate of austerity to balance a new constitutional dimension of a ‘highly competitive social market economy’ with a modernisation agenda for the single market.

• Almunia
• Altmark
• Public services
• modernisation
• state aid

• , School of Law, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

  Erika Szyszczak

• , Faculty of Law, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

  Johan Willem Gronden

Erika Szyszczak is a Jean Monnet Professor of Law ad personam at the University of Leicester, UK and a practising barrister at Littleton Chambers, Temple, UK. Johan van de Gronden is Professor of European Law at the Law Faculty of the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

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