The European Commission published on 22 December a report evaluating the impacts of the reforms in the services of general economic interest of the 25 Member States of the European Union, including telecommunications, postal services, gas, electricity and transport by air, road and rail.
The report reveals that community reforms aimed at promoting competition in these markets have produced clear benefits for European consumers in terms of lower prices, more diversity and better services. It refers however that it is a slow process and that obstacles to competition and to the completion of the internal market still remain and should be dealt with both by the European Commission and by Member States.
This is the second report that the Commission publishes evaluating the process set to improve these essential services’ performance, further to that of 2002. This year’s report also compares the market performances of the old and of the new Member States.
The report also concludes that the benefits of the opening of markets to competition positively impact on the rest of the economy, namely on employment, and that prices for services of general economic interest are similar in the old and in the new Member Sates, although they are less bearable in the latter, due to their lower per capita income.
Further information:
- Economic Reform (Cardiff Process) http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/update/economicreform/index.htm
- EU driven reforms of services of general interest benefit consumers and improve performance http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1690&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
