A further policy tension was evident in writing systems requirements into long term contracts for NHS IT applications while national directives for service delivery and reporting by NHS trusts continually change.
With this 'Monti package' and the proposal for a directive on services, however, the Commission is dealing with the issue of public services.
The key investment-services directive, for instance, which sets conditions for a single EU-wide licence for investment firms, and which empowers stock exchanges to operate across borders, was watered down and implemented belatedly.
In its original form, the so-called "Bolkestein directive" was supposed to do the same for services, that is, for economic activities you cannot put on a train (like finance, hairdressing, or retailing).
Such concerns were also behind the stalling earlier this year of a directive that was supposed to open markets for services to the same free flow enjoyed in markets for goods.
But in 2006 it was responsible for hammering out the final compromises on the two most important items of legislation to come out of the European Union for a long time: the directive liberalising services and legislation regulating chemicals.
The Aix-en-Provence services did not run in 2014 but will be replaced along with the seasonal Avignon Centre services with the new year round service to Marseille as of 1 May 2015 In 2010, international rail travel was liberalised by new European Union directives, designed to break up monopolies in order to encourage competition for services between countries.
We are opposed to the prevention of a possible liberalisation of services of general interest by means of derogations to the directive on services, such as has been attempted by the Federal Minister for the Economy in Germany.
With regard to the draft services directive, here too we are pursuing an aim which commands general support – the completion of the single market for services by 2010.
That is something that we believe should happen, not in four years' time, but now, at a time when the services directive is up for discussion, to enable us to draft clear criteria based on a framework directive and services of general interest, precisely where the combination of private and public tendering is concerned.
