Public undertakings with special or exclusive rights within EU competition law
Member States of the European Union have the right to freely organize property ownership within their own countries. Granting of exclusive and special rights is one of the main instruments of market organization of member states. With granting of these rights, the legislator intervenes in the invisible hand of the market and puts certain undertakings in a privileged position towards other competitors. The rules on granting of special and exclusive rights are regulated in article 106 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Granting of exclusive and special rights is not limited to private undertakings, these rights can be granted to public undertakings as well. In both cases, rules on competition of European Union must be adhered to. These rules can be avoided only if the undertaking is entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest or if the undertaking has a character of a revenue-producing monopoly and if the application of competition rules does not obstruct the performance, in law or in fact, of the particular tasks assigned to them. In this case, it is necessary that the development of trade must not be affected to such an extent as would be contrary to the interests of the Union. Conflicts from granting of special and exclusive rights may arise from defining these granting of special and exclusive rights as granting of economic advantages, in the sense of State aid rules and if a certain measure can be qualified as State aid as defined in article 107 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
In this master’s thesis I will try to demonstrate and analyse the system of granting of special and exclusive rights to public undertakings. For this purpose, concepts such as public undertakings, public services, exclusive and special rights, services of general economic interests and State aids in connection to granting of exclusive and special rights, are presented. These concepts are supported by jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of The European Union. In addition, the paper sets out the conditions in the Altmark case, which are used to determine whether a case involves State aid. The concluding part of the master's thesis is intended to summarize the topic stated in the title and its effects on the competition law policy of the European Union.
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