26 Amendments of Pascal CANFIN related to 2011/2146(INI)
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recalls the origin of services of general economic interest (SGEIs) as a State response to the insufficient supWelcomes the Commission’s communication on the reform of the EU state aid rules on services of general economic interest (SGEIs); recalls the place that SGEIs hold among the EU’s shared values and the role they play of goodsin promoting the Union’s social and stervices in essential areas, whereby States guaranteed the provision of essential quality services which would otherwise not exist; notes that the subsequent development of SGEIs has its roots in the countless market failures in the provision of public goods and servicesritorial cohesion; stresses in this connection that it is essential to guarantee quality services; recalls that, under the terms of Article 106(2) of the TFEU, services of general economic interest are subject to the Treaty rules on state aid only in so far as the application of such rules does not obstruct the performance, in law or in fact, of the particular tasks assigned to them;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Encourages the Commission to put forward a legislative initiative that will ensure compatibility between the specific nature of SGEIs, as recognised in Article 14 of the Lisbon Treaty and Protocol 26 annexed to the Treaty, and the competition rules laid down in Articles 106 and 107, taking account, among other aspects, of the conditions set out in the Altmark judgmentin accordance with Article 14 of the Lisbon Treaty and Protocol 26 annexed to the Treaty, so as to establish principles and conditions, particularly those of a financial and economic nature, that will enable public services to perform their specific tasks;
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Takes the view that SGEIs' operating criteria should take account of market efficiency without losing sight of the effective safeguarding of social rights and consumer protection;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Considers it crucial to combat the legal uncertainty caused by cases brought before the European Court of Justby clarifying the concepts of economice and infringement proceedings opened by the Commission, by providing a clear and rigorous definition of SGEIs and differentiating them from services of general non-economic interest (SGIs)non-economic activity, impact on trade, and reasonable profit, as well as by providing local and regional authorities with better information on these matters and by giving them more training to enhance their understanding of the rules on state aids;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Considers that all social services meeting basic needs, particularly as regards access to healthcare, child care, professional training, work, social housing and social inclusion for vulnerable persons, should be exempted from the notification requirement;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Takes the view that the Commission's current responsibilities, taking decisions on a case-by-case basis, should be underpinned by clear criteria and objectives that can be accepted by the Member States, are limited to the internal market and reduce the scope for litigation; considers that focusing excessively on efficiency criteria when authorising state aid to SGEIs would be inappropriate and that at any event such criteria cannot be a substitute for indicators that better reflect the contribution made by public services to the well-being of the community; recalls the vital role and wide discretionary power of the national, regional and local authorities in supplying, organising and securing the performance of SGEIs in line with principles and conditions particularly of a financial and economic nature, which enable them to function and perform their tasks and thus respond as broadly as possible to the needs of citizens and users, given the diversity of SGEIs and the varying needs that may exist as a result of differing geographical, social and cultural situations; highlights in this connection the principle of subsidiarity;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Highlights the specific nature of small- scale public procurementWelcomes the Commission’s move to adopt a differentiated and proportionate approach so as to simplify the application of the rules on state aid to public services provided by associations, foundations, non-profit organisations and social enterprises and to services organised at regional and local level, which does not affect competition in the internal market and where a simplified and transparent procedure should be possible that encourages innovation and the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).ith a limited impact on trade between Member States, and considers that there should be no discrimination in this respect on the basis of the size of the local or regional authority concerned;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Recalls that the state aid rules should comply strictly with the subsidiarity principle and should guarantee freedom of choice for local and regional authorities as regards their methods of organising, funding and performing public service tasks;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Supports the concept of thresholds for exemption from the requirement to give notification of state compensatory payments for SGEI, with the associated lessening of the administrative burden; suggests, on the basis of the consultations carried out, that the thresholds which determine the application of the SGEI Decision should be raised and that the existing exemption without thresholds for hospitals and social housing should be continued; calls for an exemption from notification for any social SGEI without any thresholds and without any conditions in terms of regular control of overcompensation;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Believes that a legal framework for SGEI should in particular take explicit account of positives externalities generated by the provision of these services as an element to be integrated in particular in the calculation of the appropriate level of compensatory payments for SGEI; deems that a methodological framework should be developed at the EU and National level for that purpose in consistency with the principle of subsidiarity;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Deems that the forthcoming Commission proposal on EU 2020 Project Bonds could and should be a major vector for the development of services of general interest in the Member States as well as at the European Union level; underlines that procedures established with that purpose should be explicitly laid down in a project eligibility framework to be defined following the ordinary legislative procedure;
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Asserts emphatically that public services must be of a high quality and accessible to all sections of the population; views with concern, in this regard, the restrictive stance taken by certain Member Statesthe European Commission which, in relation to state aid for social housing associations, classifyies the services provided by such associations as social services of general interest (SSGI) only if they are reserved for socially disadvantaged persons or groups, this restrictive interpretation being at odds with the higher goal of fostering an appropriate social mix;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Welcomes the intention of the European Commission to clarify key concepts; and calls on the European Commission to include in the clarification the concept of the 'level of compensation needed (...) on the basis of an analysis of the costs which a typical undertaking, well run and adequately provided with means of transport (...) would have incurred' (CJEU judgment in Case C-280/00, Altmark), and the concepts of economic and non-economic activities, effects on trade, reasonable profit as well as the qualification of certain entities as undertakings;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8b. Calls on the European Commission to base the clarification of key concepts which are not set out in the Treaties and which concern especially the economic and financial conditions for the functioning of SGEI on Article 14 TFEU to ensure the necessary legal certainty and not by means of an interpretative and non legally binding Communication;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 c (new)
Paragraph 8 c (new)
8c. Stresses that the "act of entrustment" is a guarantee of transparency which has to be retained in order to give more visibility for citizens but that the scope for mandating (act of entrustment) should be enhanced, in particular by means of the more flexible application of the rules; calls for project accompanied with a "contract of objectives" to be considered as eligible act of entrustment;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Calls on the Commission, as part of the promised simplification of state aid rules, to introduce greater flexibility in the monitoring of over-compensation, as this would result in significant time and cost savings for both service providers and the public authorities; suggests, to this end, that, in the case of multiannual contracts, checks for over-compensation should be carried out only at the end of the contractual period; deems that the responsibility for defining the practical tools for the prevention and the frequency of checks should be left to the relevant public authorities ; believes that any situation of overcompensation must be prevented by setting transparent criteria for calculation of public service compensation and, in case of overcompensation, resolved through simplified remedies for undertakings;
Amendment 70 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9a. Asks the European Commission to take cases of undercompensation into consideration, as undercompensation could endanger the well-functioning of public services obligations;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 b (new)
Paragraph 9 b (new)
9b. Calls on the Commission to take on board any initiatives of prevention of overcompensations by the Member States such as the obligation for undertakings to reinvest locally any profits on services of general interest;
Amendment 79 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Calls on the Commission to propose appropriate thresholds for the ‘de minimis’ arrangement; suggests as a possible reference in this respect the combined indices of size of municipality, amount of compensation payment and level of turnover of the undertaking entrusted with the operation of the service;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Notes that the small and limited scale of social services of general interest cannot be verified on the single criterion of the population of a given authority but must be based on a set of indicators that take account, in particular, of the geographical location of an authority and the range or potential public service users involved;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11b. Reminds that SGEI providers have different status such as associations, foundations, voluntary and community organizations, non-profit organizations or social enterprises; recalls that some of those operate exclusively at the local level, do not engage in commercial activities and reinvest locally any profits on services of general interest ; deems that such operators are unable to affect trading in the internal market and disturb competition in the internal market;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 c (new)
Paragraph 11 c (new)
11c. Suggests to the Commission that the de minimis ceiling of EUR 200 000 over three years below which public aid is not regarded as State aid should be raised to EUR 800 000a year specifically for public service compensation; deems that such a rule would exclude from the scope of State aid control all local public services relying on the local voluntary sector and local social micro-enterprises, including inter alia those related to social development such as social inclusion, the fight against exclusion, community work and the promotion of cultural, sporting and socio-educational activities; deems that the specificities of these local services guarantee the absence of any intra- Community trade distortion; underlines that it would be physically impossible for local and regional authorities to subject this kind of local operator to State aid control given the wide range of the services involved;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Calls on the Commission to devise special arrangements for social services of general interest (SSGI) that can be assumed to entail no detriment to trade between Member States; suggests, to this end, that appropriate highern exemption without thresholds be proposed for the amount of compensatory payments for local social services of this type;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Welcomes the Commission's assertion that it wishes to exempt in principle further categories of SSGI from the requirement that aid to them be the subject of notification without thresholds; calls for an assessment as to whether such an exemption should extend to all SGEI meeting basic social needs as defined by Member States, such as care facilities for elderly people or, people with disabilities, or to healthcare facilities, inter alia child care, lifelong training, social work services, social inclusion;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Opposes the introduction by the Commission of specific requirements related to the assessment of economic efficiency in the framework of SGEI compensation at the Member State level; underlines that that the scope of the Commission competence, as the European competition authority, does not extend to the definition of conditions required for the efficient allocation of public resources by Member States authorities; points out that the exclusive role exercised by the Commission, under the supervision of the European Court of Justice, is limited to ensuring the conformity of public service compensation to the conditions laid down by the Court in the Altmark judgment;