EuropEan CEntrE • EuropäisChEs ZEntrum • CEntrE EuropÉEn poliCy BriEf august 2013 Far from a common market: Exploring the surprising paucity of German care home providers in Austria Kai Leichsenring The common market and the new ‘light regime for social services’ Long-term care (LTC) services and facilities are a specifc part of what has been labelled ‘social services of general interest’ (ssgi) and ‘services of General Economic Interest’ (SGEI) in EU rules and regulations. While the regulation of the LTC sector as such remains under the responsibility of individual countries, Member States have also agreed upon ‘a set of com- mon objectives centred on access for all to fnancially sustainable, high- quality long-term care’ (European Commission, 2013a: 4) and, of course, to apply ‘the European Union rules on state aid, public procurement and the internal market’ (European Commission, 2013b: 5). These include in particular the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services (Articles 49 and 56 TFEU), but also particular legal specifcations that have emanated from case law, 1 consultations of stakeholders and communications from the Commission (e.g. European Commission, 2010). Nevertheless, Member States remained with ‘a wide margin of discretion’ when it comes to defning the public service tasks they want to put in place as ‘the precise (…) services which form part of these tasks do not necessarily have to be specifed’ (European Commission, 2010: 42). The countless details regarding when public authorities support, procure, outsource, control or fund social services triggered ample critique from Member States, social service providers and within the Commission. as a result of ensuing consultations, 2 a number of new regulations have contributed to determine ‘a light regime for social services’ in relation to State aid and public procurement of SSGI over the past few years (cf. European Commission, 2013b): 1 The most influential Court decision in this context was the ‘Altmark judgment’ (Case C-280/00 Altmark [2003] ECR I-7747), which stated that financing an SGEI is not State aid if it is meant to fund a well-identified task, if the financing conditions have been defined in a clear and transparent way, ensuring that it does not exceed the costs of the SGEI, and if the service is provided in a cost-efficient manner. 2 See http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/legislation/sgei_archive_en.html Kai Leichsenring is Research Associate and project manager at the European Centre for social Welfare Policy and Research,Vienna. Policy Briefs are a publication series providing a synthesis of topics of research and policy advice on which European Centre researchers have been working recently. series Editor is Pieter Vanhuysse, Deputy Director and Head of Research vanhuysse@euro.centre.org Keywords: Ageing, Austria, Care Home Provision, European Union This Policy Brief reports on an exploration of German care home providers’ experiences to move (or not to move) their activities to Austria in the context of EU regulations. This Policy Brief is based on research that has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No. 242058. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Policy Documentation Center