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Brussels, 28 June 2007
CEEP. 2007/29

BARCELONA, 8 NOVEMBER 2007
10TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF LOCAL ENTERPRISES:
A DATE NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN

At the initiative of CEEP, the 10th European Conference of local public enterprises (LPEs) will be held in Barcelona on 8 November 2007, on the invitation of ELIGE, the Spanish association of LPEs set up recently.

This now traditional conference constitutes the annual meeting-place for managers of local public enterprises from all over Europe and for all their partners (local elected politicians, representatives of the European institutions, local development actors, etc.).

The theme of the 2007 conference will be

“Sustainable development and the European legal framework:
local public enterprises at a crossroads”

The conference will be split into three sessions:

News of local public enterprises. Apart from the special features inherent to each national context, the some 18,000 local public enterprises operating all over Europe share a number of values and common features which induced them from the mid-1990s on to organise joint representation and action at Community level.
The European conference is their main annual meeting, enabling them in particular to find out about the main facts that have marked the life of this movement of local public enterprises in recent months: the establishment of a Spanish federation, the situation of LPEs in Rumania and Bulgaria, etc.

Local public enterprises and sustainable development. Sustainable development now constitutes an essential component of the action of local and regional authorities which are eager to take part, at the level of their territories, in the main global challenges, including climate change, the preservation of water and energy resources, and the maintenance of biodiversity and natural balance.

Given their diverse business activities, local public enterprises have frequently streamlined sustainable development strategies into their activities, including energy saving measures and recourse to renewable energy sources, the removal of pollution from soil and waste treatment, urban planning and environment-friendly construction, environment-friendly purchasing and the fight against waste.

This session will provide people with a better grasp of sustainable development from the point of view of public regional action and enable them to find out about measures already being taken by LPEs in this domain.

Towards a legal framework for local public enterprises. In its 2004 White Paper on services of general interest, the European Commission announced a certain number of initiatives which should be published by the end of 2007 and which apparently concern very directly the rules of functioning and intervention of local public enterprises: interpretative communication on institutionalised public-private partnerships and legislative proposal on concessions. Given the expected content of these texts, what might their impact be on local public enterprises? How will these texts interact with the already extensive case law of the Court of Justice concerning the method of organising local authorities and with other initiatives that could also be taken by the Commission in relation to services of general interest?

Information:
Thierry DURNERIN Sonia d’OLNE
Tel. +33 1 53 32 22 10 Tel. +32 2 219 27 98
e-mail : t.durnerin@fedsem.fr e-mail : sonia.dolne@ceep.eu