Europe and Public Services

At a moment when the exposure of public services to competition is gradually extending in France to such sectors as energy production and distribution, rail transport and postal services,
Jean-François Drevet examines the effects of liberalization, a process that has been spreading within the European Union since the late 1980s.
After delivering a mixed verdict on the earliest privatizations, most notably in telecommunications and air transport, Drevet highlights the worrying prospects for recent and current liberalizations. “How is the public interest to be reconciled with that of a private operator?” he asks, before raising the question of the current relevance of this policy, given the EU’s new objectives — namely territorial cohesion, energy security and combating climate change. He goes on to stress the importance, in this context, of the concept of “smart regulation”