New year, new life! And it's time to refresh my blog. I will start this new "season" of messages by starting a set of messages about the challenges for the future of the European Union.
The public intervention of the EU-instituions in the strategic sectors
Despite the fact that the EU have some responsabilities on the strategic sectores of the economy, there is no rules or legislation about how to define and how to intervent in the strategic sectors. There is no legislation that defines in which sectors the State needs to intervent. Usually the public intervention is a result of the historic tradition.
Inside the European Union, there is a belief that in the southern countries, the publci intervention os excessive (which can be supported by the current debt crisis) but it's nothing more than a myth. If we see the weight of the public intervention in the total of the economic's activity, we can see that in the Nordic countries is much higher. However, there is no limitation about how far the State can intervent in the economy: not even in each member.
In the last decades we saw among the majority of the EU-members a decrease in the importance of the State's role in the economy. Why is that happening, even not existing legislation about that? Mainly for three reasons:
- the increase in the intern market's dimension;
- the economic liberalization and globalization, which brought the international competitiveness;
- the privatization of the public business sector (an inspiration of the anglo-saxon model);
The big consequence of the decrease of the public intervention is the redution of the instruments the governments can use to make its intervention.
Currently with the redution of the public companies, we see the States giving benefits to the private companies, under the previous authorization of the European Institutions. So, even taking in account the reality of each member, the EU needs to take part on the intervention due to the importance of the sectores not only for the stability of the respective member, but also for the stability of the EU.
There is also another reason for the public intervention: the public economic interest services (different from the social interest services). These services are the activities that don't have the profit maximization as a goal, but a social purporse instead. So the sustainability is guaranteed by the Government.
From the pratical experience, the European Union defined some sctores that can be considered strategic such as:
- Water supply and distribution;
- Energy (the supply and distribution of energy is giving many problems between countries all over the world, including inside the UE, which gives a special attention to this sector);
- Transportation;
- Telecommunications (not only important because allow people to communicate, but also because the telecommunications sector are essential to the functioning of the economy - the vulnerability of our lives is big now because of the privacy questions);
- Defense industry;
To conclude this first message, the criteria that define the protectionist politics at european level, give more importance to the economistic side, withiout giving the right importance to the social and ambiental impacts of the proteccionism.
