Services of General Interest in a Nordic Context Hjalti Jóhannesson, University of Akureyri Research Centre ESPON on the Road final seminar, Vilnius 11 November 2014

1.The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden – Lead Partner 2.University of Vienna (UNIVIE), Austria 3.Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), Germany 4.Centre of Geographical Studies (CEG), University of Lisbon, Portugal 5.University of Akureyri (UNAK), Iceland 6.Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), Norway 7.Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization (IGSO), Polish Academy of Science, Poland 8.PlanIdea, Hungary 9.Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Research Centre for Macroeconomic and Regional Forecasting (PROMAR), Romania 10.Territorial Observatory of Navarra (NASURSA), Spain 11.University of West of England (UWE) United Kingdom SeGI - Indicators and Perspectives for Services of General Interest in Territorial Cohesion and Development (2010 – 2013)

The concept „Services of General Interest“ is rather loosely defined and has its roots in EU politics and governance: “The debate on services of general interest suffers from a lack of clarity on terminology. The concepts are used interchangeably and inaccurately. Stakeholders have asked the Commission to provide clarity. In doing so, however, the Commission is bound by EU primary law and the Court's case- law. Moreover, the concepts are dynamic and evolve.” (European Commission 2011) In fact, a mixture of infrastructure and diverse services provided by public and private bodies SGI – Services of General Interest?

The aim of the SeGI project Address the need for support for policy making, at all levels and of all types of territories, for effective delivery of SGI throughout Europe Identify gaps that exist in territorial evidence to support implementation, monitoring and evaluation of territorial policy measures for SGI

1Definitions and key concepts 2Data and maps 3Indicator appraisal and review 4Case studies 5Typologies 6Governance and policy aspects 7Scenarios 8Suggestions for future research Work Activities 5

SSGI: Social Services of General Interest Social security, employment and training services, social housing, child care, long-term care and social assistance services SGEI: Services of General Economic Interest Telecommunications/electronic communications, postal services, electricity, gas, transport Other services of general economic interest Waste management, water supply, public service broadcasting Classification of SGIs

Status of SGIs in Europe (NUTS 2) Atlas of SGIs compiled and published under the lead of BBSR in Bonn Certain similarities among nordic countries/regions See here: eroeffentlichungen/Sonderveroeffentl ichungen/2013/DL_Atlas.pdf?__blob= publicationFile&v=2 eroeffentlichungen/Sonderveroeffentl ichungen/2013/DL_Atlas.pdf?__blob= publicationFile&v=2

Description/analysis of the state of SGIs in the region Statistics Survey among the municipalities Expert interviews General informants (public administrators/ policy makers/ academia representatives, key-users, representatives of business sector) Practitioners involved in delivering SGI Two in Nordic locations Northern-Iceland Finnmark in Norway Case studies

Agenda General findings – Case: northern Iceland

Agenda Access to services: scale 1-5

Agenda Quality of technical infrastructure: scale 1-5

Agenda Quality of social services: scale 1-5

Agenda 1.Difficult to fund services after the crisis, demands have not decreased 2.Privatization of services and use of market solutions has had more negative impact in remote areas 3.Some services tend to be increasingly centralized 4.Cooperation of municipalities on service provision and related issues is be fragmented 5.Personal connections seem to influence how things are carried out in small communities 6.Equality between individuals regarding service provision believed to be relatively high 7.Some communities tend to compete with larger municipalities in order to provide similar services without really being capable of doing so Interviews: Some interesting comments

Agenda 1.Financing of services – cutbacks tend to be worse in peripheral locations 2.How to economize without damaging the services? 3.More complex technology and equipment, impacts the location of specialized services – more centrality (e.g. hospital service) 4.Hard to recruit and maintain staff with specialized education and/or qualifications to settle in peripheral locations (e.g. health staff) 5.Fewer inhabitants in peripheral locations – increasingly difficult to provide services – costly and time consuming to seek services in core locations Interviews: Examples of challenges facing services

Agenda Thank you!