Festschrift für Fritz W. Scharpf - MPIfG

110 II · Politik und Demokratie in Europa
against pension systems financed from general tax revenue or from compulsory
insurance schemes. (Scharpf 1999: 61)
To underline its recently developed market-correcting policy goals concerning
the utilities, the Commission has adopted new measures. It has begun to
use the Open Method of Coordination as an evaluation tool to assess the operation,
performance and competitiveness of general interest services along
the lines of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines. The hope is that publicizing
performance, “naming and shaming”, and the application of reputational
mechanisms will improve the performance of member countries in the
provision of general interest services.
Similarly, the granting of state aid for the delivery of general interest
services is reconsidered. State aid is accepted, provided that each case is designed
in a way that reduces the distortion of free trade and competition to a
minimum. The same rules apply to exclusive rights if they are put up for
competitive bids (CEC 2000: 31). The supply operations must be made
transparent, be they public or private (Transparency Directive 2000/52/EC).
If we look at particular sectors, indications of market-correcting preferences
of the Commission may be found as well. In the rail sector, the Commission
was quick to develop a programme on the “Future of the Railways”,
where it sought to create a vision of a well-developed railway infrastructure
in Europe. It was able to awaken some enthusiasm in member-state governments
for its view (Kerwer/Teutsch 2001). One result was the development
and implementation of the Transeuropean Network Programme (Young
2000).
While the Commission is dissatisfied with the success of European railway
liberalization and applies individual legislative measures against member
states, 2 it considers public service interests safeguarded in national
practices in the context of European legislation. The Commission has criticized
the 1991 and 1995 railway legislation on market access, the organizational
and financial structure of railway companies, licensing and the allocation
of tracks (Directives 91/440 EEC and 95/18 EC) for being too vague
to allow for broad market access and transparency. As a consequence, it
proposed additional measures to extend the licensing rules to all railway undertakings
in the Community, establish rules for setting charges and allo-
2 Thus the Commission brought a procedure to the ECJ in which it accuses Deutsche Bahn
AG of impeding access to the network by new, smaller market participants (Nouvelles
Europe 2001c: 3).