Services in European Policies

Luis Rubalcaba

No 16, Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings from European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe

Abstract: This paper’s objective is twofold. Firstly, it presents the case for services-related policies in the current European Union (EU). The services economy is frequently misunderstood, due to old and new myths that stem from the classic economic tradition. These myths obscure the role of the services economy in economic development. Nonetheless, the European services economy faces specific problems, such as lack of market integration, which amplifies arguments that justify policy actions toward services within a framework where market and systemic failures do apply. Secondly, this paper focuses on existing services-policies at the EU level, paying special attention to the internal market for services policies and to the complementary role of primarily non-regulatory policies. Within a comprehensive policy framework, each individual policy will have a higher impact, improved implementation and easier acceptance. Synergies among services-related policies should be promoted; the internal market policies, enterprise and industrial policies, competition policies and regional policies may take the lead in such a framework. Since the Lisbon Strategy, services have begun to gain recognition in EU policy agendas. This paper attempts to increase their visibility and to highlight their crucial role in European integration and in economic growth and social welfare.

Keywords: services; economic policy; Europe; European Union. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F02 F15 F53 L80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2007-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/beep16.pdf?download=1 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:coe:wpbeep:16

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Bruges European Economic Policy Briefings from European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jessie Moerman ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).