Le service public comme stratégie de régulation

Résumé Fr En

La question de la régulation des services publics est souvent considérée comme centrale chez les juristes. C’est à partir de cette idée que sont conceptualisées les lois du service public et plus largement les obligations de service public. L’objet du présent article est de renverser la perspective. Le service public peut être conçu comme une stratégie de régulation (et donc comme une modalité d’intervention) et non comme un « service » (défini par sa matérialité) à réguler. Ce pas de côté par rapport à la doctrine traditionnelle en droit public offre une perspective renouvelée sur le « droit » du service public.

When legal regulations are considered, it is very unusual to analyze public services as a regulatory strategy. They are certainly a way for the “state” to intervene in the economy but most efforts by academics, lawyers and policy makers focus on the way to regulate them – from the condition of their creation to their reach and impact on competition – using orthodox (e.g. command and control or economic incentives) or heterodox (e.g. mandated disclosure or nudges) regulatory strategies. Under this traditional conceptualization, public services should be defined by the nature of the service they are providing, the nature having then an influence on the regulation of that service.The purpose of this paper is to reverse our perspective of public services regarding their relation vis-à-vis regulation. Public services are not mere services which need to be regulated keeping an eye on the influence of that regulation on distortion of competition, they are, essentially, a type of regulation. Not only is this approach more coherent with the use of this notion by European institutions and its practical legal relevance, it also forces us to reconsider the relevance of public services (as a type of regulation) compared to other regulatory strategies. As any other regulatory strategy, it should be used if and only if it is the efficient way to achieve what the regulation is aiming for. Such a conceptualization thus contributes to a limiting of blind spots when the efficiency of a public service (considered as a service) is considered.