Protokoll 2003 - Seko

We are concerned about regulation within the European Union. SEKO is
an organization that supported our work in the European Union for years.
You played a very active part in our work to try and maintain for instance
the universal service in postal services. You worked with us to try and get
a definition of universal service in telecoms, which will include for instance
broadband services. Those are fights which we have conducted, and
I think we can be proud of the success that we have had.
But we can never rest. It is not only the WTO, it is even the European
Union itself which in other areas starts making decisions which will affect
us. The most recent is the new convention, the new constitution of
Europe, where a question of what they call services of general interest has
been raised. This is a very interesting example of how discussions take
place. Some years ago, we were saying that in a free market, you have to
take notice of the role of public services. But during the discussion that
then takes place, ”public” becomes a word which we are not really
allowed to use, and so they invent a new phrase, which is ”services of
general interest”.
Of course during this discussion some people don't like that concept very
much either, and so the latest consultation paper which the European
Union now puts out on the subject is not called ”services of general
interest”, which for us meant public services. It is now called ”services of
general economic interest”. Gradually, bit by bit in this debate, these concepts
get narrowed down, and the essential meaning of what we mean by
”public services” and ”universal services” is forgotten.
The European Union recently put out a consultative document on
”services of general interest”. It contains what I think is one of the most
harmful phrases I've seen in a long time on this subject. They say: No
evidence exist that deregulation has ever had a harmful effect on services
of general interest.
I think that you, like me, when you are in these areas where we worked,
ask: Where were these officials from the European Union? Where were
they when the energy crisis hit the USA? Where were they when the transport
crisis hit the United Kingdom? Where were they when Enron, one of
the biggest companies in the world, collapsed, taking with it the pensions
of hundreds of thousands of people? Where were they when WorldCom,
one of the inventions of the liberalization of telecoms, a company which
would not have been possible without the liberalization of telecoms,
where were they when WorldCom collapsed? And where were they when
Vivendi, a public water company which moved out into all areas of telecommunications,
television and entertainment, where were they when
Vivendi collapsed?
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