The applicability of the competition rules has far-reaching consequences for the freedom of the State to organize the supply of public services. Could the specific features of particular public services justify the non-applicability of the competition rules? This contribution explores which limits to the broad concept of undertaking can be found in EU competition law. It will be argued that, apart from the two (well-known) limits related to official authority and social security schemes, a third limit emerges from the case law of the EU courts. Services provided in order to pursue specific public policy goals seem to fall outside European competition law. In contrast with economic activities, where companies supply goods or services to individual consumers, the main characteristic of the ‘public policy goal activities’ is the collective way of financing. It will be contended that the following three-prong test should be carried out for concluding that competition law does not apply to these activities: (1) the supply of the services concerned is predominately dependent on public funding (2) the objective of the public funding is to achieve a public interest goal (3) the activities concerned are closely related to this public interest goal.
World Competition