Sir Ian Byatt issues warning on the EU Services Directive
The European Union could be about to favour producer interests over consumers and hinder the opening of public services to competition and customer choice in the vote on the new EU Service Directive this autumn, says a study by Sir Ian Byatt, Senior Associate with Frontier (London) and Chair of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, published by the European Policy Forum on 12 September 2005.
Sir Ian Byatt states that there is a real risk for the Services Directive's original aim of liberalising cross-border services to be diluted, resulting in definitions and rules in favour of producer interest. If public services were to be removed from the document and a new framework directive is set up that would allow incumbent providers to persist with old-fashioned methods of provision, exempt from competition law, then service delivery will be more costly and less customer-friendly than citizens have a right to expect.
In this context, Sir Ian Byatt further wrote an article in the Financial Times, published in the 12 September edition. Click here to see article.
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