Services of General Economic Interest: Strategies of Regulation, the Role and Forms of Stakeholder Participation

Market liberalization is a complex process and many challenges are emerging. One of them is related to stakeholder interaction and participation as democratization of the regulatory process, through regular dialogue between users, service providers, professional organisations and the Government and regulatory agencies. Regulation of services of general economic interest in the EU is based on a picemeal approach and follows different patterns in different areas the market. The shift from traditional instruments to less traditional instruments assumes that new regulators, public and private, have new roles and functions in shaping both ius cogens and as well private law relations on services. Such distribution of powers and responsibilities made borderlines in the regulatory arena blurred, especially taking into account the significance of co-regulation and self-regulation and the degree to which stakeholders are involved. The research should present the spectrum of stakeholders who intervene during various phases of services of general economic interest regulation and their interaction among themselves and the regulators. As decisions of modern regulators should be based on balancing the interests of various groups, responsively, it is essential that the process is open to a scrutiny of those who will be affected. A distinction should be made between deliberate participation and stakeholder participation. The first assumes an active role of stakeholders in policy making, while the second is used when referring to situations when the public does not have the opportunity to participate at the early stages of decision-making, not before decisions have already been formulated, and is given the opportunity to express the opinion on specific decisions. Participation in regulatory decision-making means that all relevant parties in the process, governments, public officials and holders of public authority, infrastructure operators and consumers, should be able contribute to improve the quality of regulatory decisions.