Developments in Services of General Interest
Series: Legal Issues of Services of General Interest

This book examines a number of issues which face the EU as well as the global economy and least developed countries in defining, regulating and providing (that is, paying for) what are traditionally known as public services.

This is the third book in the series Legal Issues of Services of General Interest. It focuses upon a set of research questions on the recent developments in the emergence of services of general interest (SGIs) as a distinct EU concept. This includes, inter alia:

• the emergence of universal service obligations and the way they are regulated in the EU in primary and secondary law;
• the range of soft law communications adopted by the Commission to create a distinctive EU concept of SGIs;
• the residual role of hard law in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU);
• the special problems created by social SGIs; and
• the interaction of procurement and state aid law with SGIs.

A new perspective is offered in this book: some of the issues faced by the EU in accommodating SGIs into a regulatory framework are found also in the policy of the WTO and in least developed countries.

This book is a valuable tool for professionals and lawyers engaged in the developing and practice of SGIs in international context.

Erika Szyszczak is Jean Monnet Professor of European Law ad personam, University of Leicester, UK. Jim Davies is Research Fellow, University of Northampton, UK. Mads Andenæs is Professor of Private Law, University of Oslo, Norway. Tarjei Bekkedal is Research Fellow at the Department of Private Law, University of Oslo, Norway.

The Legal Issues of Services of General Interest Series
The aim of the series Legal Issues of Services of General Interest is to sketch the framework for services of general interest in the EU and to explore the issues raised by developments related to these services.