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We believe that every person living in Europe should have equal access to high quality services at affordable conditions. Ensuring access to quality, affordable and accessible services for all is a way to guarantee the respect of fundamental rights, contribute to social cohesion and inclusion, as well as to the economic development and creation of jobs in the EU.

In 2012 we focused in particular on social and health services, to make sure that their specific mission is safeguarded in internal market rules and that the profit making logic does not prevail on the general interest.

We are generally satisfied with the current developments in the Parliament on public procurement which took on board many of our proposals. In fact in December the Committee on Internal Market adopted a report which deletes the lowest cost as award criterion and concerning procedures for the provision of social services it requires public authorities to take into account quality criteria. The report also recognises alternative forms of service provision which are different from public procurement: member states are free to organise the provision of compulsory social services and other services as services of general economic interest or as non-economic. The directive does not affect the way in which the member states organise their social security legislation. We hope that these achievements are confirmed in the final adoption of the directive (see Social Platform’s proposal for amendments on public procurement).

In the area of financial services, we developed recommendations on access to bank accounts for all. We welcome that at the beginning of 2013 the Commission will propose a directive on this topic. However, having a bank account is not sufficient to prevent the risk that a person could be financially excluded. Therefore we drafted recommendations to the EU institutions to ensure access, besides to bank accounts, to insurance and credit for people that need them; we also proposed actions on how to tackle over-indebtedness which has increased in the last years.

We also made proposals on the Social Business Initiative to make sure that the Commission’s action plan supports the well-established social economy players across Europe: in particular on how to facilitate access to private and EU funding for social enterprises, improve the legal environment, increase their visibility, and reinforce their managerial capacities, professionalism and networking. Michel Mercadié (Management Committee, Chair of the Working Group on Services of General Interest) was appointed member of the Commission’s Expert Group on Social Entrepreneurship.

Building on the work done in 2012, this year we will focus on:

• promoting the investment in quality, accessible and affordable services for all, by developing content to possible laws on the basis of art. 14 TFEU and showing that expenditure on social and health services is an investment for our future societies, contrary to the trends shown by the current austerity measures
• ensuring that social economy and social entrepreneurship are recognised as a sustainable and inclusive form of entrepreneurship
• making sure that in the final adoption and then implementation of EU funds, support for the development of social and health services, social economy and social enterprises is guaranteed.