Mr President, general interest services are services of both an economic and non-economic nature which are geared towards the public interest and in whose provision both the public at large and the state have a special interest. In the various Member States of the European Union, this includes supplying the public with services in the fields of energy, water, waste disposal, transport, telecommunications, post, media, finance and insurance, a basic social, educational and training system, social services, external and internal security, a judiciary and a system of registration. You will see from this broad span of services how wide-ranging this subject is. Why are we concerned with this area? Because some Member States, and, in particular, Germany, have questioned the power of the Commission to take decisions under Article 86 of the EC Treaty, and have also challenged the enactment of secondary Community law such as the transparency directive. I believe that there is no justification for the fears of the Länder and municipalities that competition law will greatly undermine their powers and destroy the existing network of mature, tried and tested general interest structures. Today we wish Parliament to adopt an opinion on the decisions to be taken by the Heads of State and Government in Laeken, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues very sincerely for their cooperation on this issue. We have been trying for over a year, by means of hearings and a great many debates, to identify a common line. The Commission's behaviour on this issue has been objective and I think I can say successful. I would therefore like to thank the Commission, which I see is still represented here. The Commission has comprehensively described the Community law framework. It has presented the principles of neutrality, freedom of definition and proportionality, which we support, and in response to the question of how more legal certainty is to be achieved, it has proposed the use of exempting regulations and case-by-case decisions. This is one of the questions that have to be resolved. Whereas a good many Members favour an amendment to Article 16, we have agreed to propose a framework directive on the basis of Article 95, the internal market article, which will allow all unresolved issues to be settled, and using the codecision procedure, this is not to be a Council regulation or a Commission instrument, but a directive under the codecision procedure, so that we will be able to fully participate in decision making on these marginal issues under competition law. There were two pivotal points in the debate: to what extent can we maintain structures that have developed along traditional lines or need to be opened up with regard to free markets and competition? Secondly, to what extent is it permissible for the state to subsidise general interest services? And if so, is there a difference between public and private companies? What general interest services come under EU law? Activities not included are all those of a non-economic nature and those that are purely national. What does this cover? EU competition law assumes that companies are involved and in this case we have the controls on state aid under Articles 87 to 89. The internal market rules refer to economic activities, and in particular the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services. In addition, there are activities relating to sovereignty which the state has effectively reserved to itself, and there are institutions which do not fall into this category, which are neither companies nor state institutions, the 'independent charitable associations' or not-for-profit organisations which the Commission refers to in its observations on Article 30, as do we. The EU's competition rules and the internal market rules are not applicable to purely internal national matters. This is particularly relevant to general interest services at regional and local level. If they are applicable, then there are exemption arrangements, such as the de minimis rule, such as aids for culture and such as the exempting regulations for small and medium-sized enterprises and other bodies. For this reason, the Commission has given us a head start by means of this framework, and one with which we basically agree, in cases where we want to establish legal certainty on issues that we have openly debated and in cases where we want to declare the free market, competition in the market, to be a fundamental principle. I would like to ask honourable Members to actively support the compromise that we worked out in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Political group: PPE-DE