Social Services of General Interest
Questionnaire
Introductory Remarks
The Communication on social services of general interest
(COM(2006)177) (hereafter "the Communication") announced
the continuation of the open process of consultation with
Member States, service providers and users of services. This
process already led to valuable input to the preparation of the
Communication.
The present questionnaire starts a second phase of this
consultation process centred on the open list of characteristics
reflecting the specific nature of social services of general interest.
In addition to the traditional criteria of general interest
(universality, transparency, continuity, accessibility etc)
recognised for all service missions of general interest, these
specific characteristics refer to the organisational conditions and
modalities applying to them.
This questionnaire forms part of the consultation process
announced in the Commission’s Communication and its results
will feed into the first biennial report in 2007
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. It will be
addressed to the Member States represented in the Social
Protection Committee as well as to the European social partners
and further European stakeholder organisations in the field of
social services. The questionnaire has the following aims:
o
adding precision to the characteristics already elaborated in
the Communication and examine the purposes of these
characteristics;
o
collecting the experiences with the application of
Community law and the concrete needs in this area;
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The Commission has also commissioned a study on social and health services of
general interest of which the results will become available by Spring 2007
(http://www.euro.centre.org/shsgi). This study will merely provide fact-finding material for
the biennial report, while the present questionnaire is concentrated on the specific policy
related issues raised in the Communication.