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Untermenü:

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• HLG Gender Mainstreaming
• Informal Meeting of the Employment and Social Ministers
• Demographic Challenges
• Workshop on alternative dispute Resolution
• Effective Legal Redress
• Board Meeting of the European Disability Forum
• European Consumer Day
• Informal Meeting of Youth Ministers and Youth Event
• Informal Meeting SPC
• Social Services
• L'Europe de l'Enfance
• Fifth Meeting of People Experiencing Poverty
• MISSOC-Meeting
• Conference Ageing and Disability
• eInclusion
• European Social Services Conference
• Meeting General Directors Youth
• Informal Meeting CWG Youth

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Inhalt:

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Informal meeting of the Social Protection Committee,
Vienna, 19 April 2006

On 19 April 2006 the Austrian Presidency will invite to an informal meeting of the Social Protection Committee to Vienna. It will be followed by a conference on "social services" organised with the support of the European Commission.

The delimitation between social services and services of general economic interest is difficult, especially since this area is also influenced by the continuous further development of ECJ jurisprudence. This question is of crucial importance as services of general economic interest come within the scope of the EC Treaty and are thus subject to the applicable rules on competition and subsidies.

Therefore the question how to create more legal certainty in this field has been discussed at European level for several years.

After the Green Paper on Services of General Interest of 21 May 2003, the Commission presented a White Paper on the same subject on 12 May 2004. The White Paper stresses that services of general interest are one of the pillars of the European model of society and that they are indispensable for social and territorial cohesion and the competitiveness of the European economy. Compliance with the principle of subsidiarity has to be ensured. The main characteristics of services of general interest, e.g. universal access, high level of quality, consumer rights, transparency and legal certainty, are to be taken into account.

The ongoing discussion is to be further developed on the basis of the European Commission’s Communication on social and health services of general interest scheduled for early 2006.

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