Liberalization of SGEIs in European Union

Nicola Ruccia, University of Bari - Italy

Abstract

The definition of SGEIs is a notion in full evolution, flexible and with some gaps. This flexibility must be estimated positively as it concurs to preserve the peculiarities of national legal orders in EU in which the opening towards legal order of other States becomes more and more important. The acknowledgment of the role of the States in this field is realized in their freedom to delineate the existence and the structure of SGEIs. The promotion of competition policies in SGEIs has been operated through their liberalization processes. They have been put into effect through some exceptions to the rules of the common market, above all norms concerning freedom of establishment and State aids. The appropriate re-balance could have place through the antitrust vigilance. Such activity must prevent that exceptional devices acquire dimensions or produce effects exceeding their justification and must avoid alterations of the economic competition that do not answer to some authentic social public mission. As a result, antitrust rules can carry out a function of balance for the free market. In this way it must be observed the relationship between processes of liberalization of SGEIs and privatization of public enterprises providing them. Member States maintain an important role but change their function: from the supply of the services to the regulation of the forces of the market that guarantee the services themselves.