Social services are still sweating the elect A Senate report relaunches the debate on public services, whose funding is prisoner of the cryptic rules of EU and the France.

Social services are still sweating the elect A Senate report relaunches the debate on public services, whose funding is prisoner of the cryptic rules of EU and the France. 08-26-2011 Official records • Senate ◦RapPort the influence of Community law on the financing of social services • Association Française de conseil des communes et Régions d'Europe •Actes of the Symposium on Europe and local public services Legislative tracking • Legifrance ◦circulaire of January 2010 on public services • European liaison Committee on services of general interest •Lettre of July 2011 information Positions • Committee of the regions ◦Avis on the revision of State aid to the SIEG • Europe ecology • Notes on public services in Europe As long as the situation is not clarified, reports on social services and the EU will pile. After the European Parliament, it is the turn of the Senate to its conclusions, put online on August 1. The diagnosis is known: confusion over procedures to allocate public aid, local communities lost in legal Yarrow of the Monti-Kroes package with the services directive, telescoping of the right of competition and social services... Some of the proposals made by the authors of the report are not new. Short of 200 000 euros over three years, it is easy to allocate public aid for any association or body in Exchange for a social service. Beyond that, another regime applies, more binding. The report of the upper Chamber therefore recommends an increase of the threshold. At the third forum on social services of general interest and European Commissioner Michel Barnier had proposed to 600 000 euros over three years. The revision of the Monti-Kroes package, expected in September, will unveil the digit retained. Error policy But the method is debated. "What I reproach to Commissioner Almunia, is to want to change the text by the Commission alone, without going through the codecision procedure, which would involve the Council in Parliament. Legally, it is possible, but politically, it is a mistake", says Pierre Bauby, Advisor to the European Centre of enterprises with public participation. Pending the revision of the thresholds, local communities will continue to misinterpret the law. They believe they are often forced to go through a call for tender to meet transparency obligations under European rules. However, when a claimant with a social vocation (homework assistance, meals to elderly, vocational rehabilitation... portage) offers its services to a municipality, it is not obliged to implement competition local structures before granting financial assistance. It may use a form of 'entrustment' which allows to directly provide a grant to a promoter, provided that specifically decline writing tasks that will be performed by the claimant and the method of calculation of the aid provided. A very strict criterion, because any surplus grant is deemed illegal by the European Commission. Puzzle In fact, the Act's mandate imposes a framework frozen to social services which, in essence, have to be flexible to adapt to the populations concerned. "Take the case of a nurse who provides care for the elderly, you cannot determine if the service for each person will last an hour or ten minutes. «Propose a social service, is not to sell gas or electricity ", illustrates Pierre Bauby. Most of the time, local authorities fear not to prepare the mandate properly Act and therefore avoid to use them. In January 2010, the State has therefore developed a 'contract of objectives', which the template was attached to a circular. But the authors of the report of the Senate find that local authorities "to it are not appropriate and continue to abusively use public procurement to the activities of associations." To counteract this through, elected officials propose to develop the training of "territorial officials to European law and the regulation of subsidies." The lack of clarity of the regime applicable to public services is twofold. At the national level, the transposition of the services directive has been integrated piece by piece in different texts, so that the puzzle is today difficult to reconstruct. While the EU did not do it, the France decided to open crèches or home assistance to European competition in the services directive. It has however not done for medical analysis laboratories. The chicken and the egg At European level, the situation is much simpler: the fog surrounding «services of general economic interest» and the difficulties of the entrustment (whose definition differs depending on the texts) have pushed Senators to call for a framework directive to finally put an end to this legal nightmare. The idea is not new, but they are unable to forge a path to the Parliament or to the Commission. Anyway, it would be naive to believe that the problem of SSGI will suddenly solve magic wand. Social services cover a field so vast that it is "impossible to apply the same rules, except to produce a text which merely generalities, believes Pierre Bauby, acknowledging the obvious need to clarify the rules". In the contrary case, elected officials can expect to traumatic experiences. Last June, the Limousin was sentenced by the administrative Court of appeal of Bordeaux who alleged to have assigned aid unlawfully to public organizations of training (Greta, Afpa etc). The latter had yet formulated an application for grant from the region, but the tribunal found that the Limousin was the instigator of the project and should have recourse to a tender. A history of hen and egg, where local elected officials were not worried if they had opted for the implementation in competition... CALENDAR: September: revision of the Monti-Kroes package End of 2011: communication on social enterprises End 2012: adoption by Parliament and the Council of measures related to the single