Services of General Interest

Communication of the Commission on SIG waited for end of March 2007 http://ec.europa.eu/services_general_interest/index_en.htm

The European Commission is working since 1996 to define more precisely and to foster debate on Services of general interest. Since then, the debate have taken in account all services when it was first including only network industries such as telecom, transport, energy.

Social services of general interest: The European Commission even published a specific communication on social services of general interest in April 2006 recognising that Social services need to be well protected in order to garantee access for all to these services. Social housing had been included in the Communication. CECODHAS have been very active in participating to the debate

CECODHAS position on the Communication SSIG positionssig_en1(November 2006)

Opinions  of the EU institutions on the Communication SSIG:

NEW: 14-03-2007: adoption of the Ferreira report on Social services of general interest by the Parliament ; see special news article in our March 2007 Newsflash

Destan report: opinion of the Committee of the regions adopted in plenary in December 2006

Hencks report : opinion of the CESE

What are the next steps ?

the Commission asked stakeholders and member States to answer a questionnaire to define the next steps, CECODHAS answered it in December 2006 (see Commission website) . Then the Commission will publish a report on social services of general interest in EU in September 2007 and will propose a communication during the Autumn to explain the next steps.