Szyszczak, Erika --- "Altmark Assessed" [2011] ELECD 709; in Szyszczak, Erika (ed), "Research Handbook on European State Aid Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on European State Aid Law

Editor(s): Szyszczak, Erika

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802741

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Altmark Assessed

Author(s): Szyszczak, Erika

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

13 Altmark assessed
Erika Szyszczak


Since the nineties, the place of public services within the single market has been
a persistent irritant in the European public debate.1

This chapter explores the Altmark ruling in the context of modernising
public services.2 Thouvenin (2009) places the Altmark ruling of 24 July
2003 as one of the few cornerstones which constitute the main founda-
tions of EU law, placing Altmark alongside the landmark rulings of Van
Gend en Loos,3 Costa v. ENEL,4 Simmenthal,5 AETR 6 and Rutili.7 Viewing
the ruling in this light allows an interrogation of the role of State aid law
and policy, moving beyond an analysis of how the European Courts and
the Commission have moderated the balance between protecting funda-
mental ideological principles of the Member States in providing public
services against the countervailing tendencies of competition, free move-
ment and liberalisation, by asking how Altmark has contributed to the
modernisation of the functioning of public services.


I. ALTMARK IN CONTEXT

Public services have occupied an awkward role in the integration process.
Bauby (2011) notes that, with the exception of what is now Article 93
TFEU (in the Chapter on Transport), the original EEC Treaty declined
to acknowledge the role of public services in the European integration
project. Instead the Treaty re-invented the concept of public services as
`services of general economic interest', as a derogation from the fundamen-
tal economic policy provisions of the EEC in what is now Article 106( ...