Services of General Interest: a Swedish perspective

Abstract:

Welfare services in Sweden are to a large extent the responsibility of municipalities, county councils and regions. This includes the provision of housing, health care, waste management and education. The actual execution of those tasks however, is frequently delegated to private providers, requiring consideration of EU legal framework.

In this report, Tom Madell, Professor at Umeå University, discusses the role of EU regulations on services of general economic interest in maintaining local self-government and Swedish welfare politics.

The study is a contribution to the debate on how to combine the interest of a free market with other interests of socio-political nature.