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Publishers Abstract:
This article explores the increasing importance being attached to non-economic values and principles in what may prove to be the construction of a new model of European Union competition law. In particular, the concept of solidarity is identified as the pre-eminent core value possessing the capacity to direct and delineate the relationships between providers, regulators and users of public services in a European civil society. The approach taken in this paper accordingly starts by reviewing the concept of solidarity in a number of EU contexts in order to establish its essential characteristics as a foundational value. The conclusions of the paper position the specific arguments about solidarity and public services regulation in the context of wider trends in EU legal and social development, underlining the point that the debate about public services is entirely consistent with the wider controversies over the future direction of Europe that dogged the emergence of the 2004 Constitutional Treaty.
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