The term Economic Services of General Interest includes sectors such as telecommunications, banking, postal services, water supplies, gas, electricity, transport and any other economic activities that are declared of general interest by the states. Activities classified as Economic Services of General Interest have a double dimension. On the one hand, they are economic services, that is, they have a monetary component, which is contained in a provision in exchange for a price, or what is the same, the service is provided in exchange for an economic remuneration. This means that they are liberalized activities, that is, that they must be opened to free competition, so that any economic operator can enter the market and make use of his right to the freedom to provide services, without any restrictions or limitations other than those imposed by competition law. On the other hand, they are of general interest, which means that they satisfy basic and essential needs of the community. They help people to lead a dignified life and ensure that everyone can access essential goods and services. As we will see, they guarantee justice, cohesion and social integration and help to ensure that all citizens of the Union are treated equally. They constitute a key aspect for the promotion of economic, social and territorial cohesion and are determinants for economic growth based on sustainable development. Therefore, European Law establishes a series of guarantees for their provision. In this way, these activities carry a label that makes them special because of their essential and basic character for the community. Therefore, its provision must be ensured, but not only its provision, but its provision according to a series of parameters such as universality, quality, regularity and price, which must be affordable for everyone. As these activities respond to basic and essential needs of the community, the supply and access to these services must be guaranteed to citizens. According to Spanish Law, access to these benefits was guaranteed through the public service formula, so that the responsibility for their provision was entrusted to the Administration. However, European Union legislation imposes the liberalization of some of these activities, so that they are open to the free market and competition. In this framework, the provision of services operates according to the criterion of economic and commercial profitability and puts an end to state monopolies, giving rise to the figure of consumers and users of services, endowed with specific rights and instruments of protection. However, these are activities that continue to be of general interest, so their provision must be guaranteed to citizens in terms of quality, regularity, universality and affordable price. In this context, the European Union has sought to reconcile the economic liberalization of these activities, with the underlying public interest and the interests and rights of the users of these essential services. To this end, European Union standards have developed techniques and instruments aimed at meeting these requirements and guaranteeing citizens access to basic services and protection of their rights and legitimate interests, issues that are the subject of analysis in this article. The link between services of general interest and the need to protect the rights of consumers of these services is highlighted in Article 1 of Protocol No. 26 on services of general interest. When people resort to essential services, they become users of those services. Very often, this entails a contractual relationship that requires the signing of a contract for the provision of services that individualizes the citizen and places them within the scope of application of consumer legislation. Consumers are at the heart of the single market as key players for economic growth. From this perspective, they are subject to and protected by consumer legislation, which is strongly influenced by European Union regulations. Consumer protection is, since the Treaty of Rome, a main area on which the European Union has an important regulatory acquis. However, the defense of consumers and users was not initially articulated as a list of rights, but their protection was articulated through competition law, because, it was understood, the defense of competition is the defense of the consumer. The regulation to deal with market failures and unfair behaviors has the effect of improving real competition and avoiding asymmetries contrary to the interests of the consumer and, therefore, to the efficiency of the markets. However, for years, the European Union has been promoting consumer rights from a point of view independent of competition law. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the Directive 2019/2161 of the European Parliament and of the Council of November 27, 2019 amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directives 98/6/EC, 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/ EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, as far as it concerns the improvement of the implementation and the modernisation of the Union's consumer protection rules. All these directives, and some others that regulate consumer rights, aim at the harmonization of consumer rules in order to provide legal certainty to users, as a necessary requirement for the functioning of the internal market, the consolidation of which is certainly subject to the behavior of its consumers. In regard to the legal protection of consumers, both in national systems and in European Law, it is not enough to recognize rights in favor of consumers, but it is essential to establish appropriate channels so that they can assert the recognized rights in case they are violated. The qualified character that is recognized to the users of basic services is also appreciated in the articulated system of conflict resolution. As these are essential services, it is necessary that disputes and controversies are resolved with a certain speed, without the need to resort to the slow, expensive and unpredictable judicial route. That is why the rules provide for alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in these areas and the possibility of contacting the Administration to claim those rights that are considered to have been injured by the service provider. As these are basic and essential services that must be provided regularly, the resolution of conflicts must be articulated through quick and simple procedures, which avoid, as far as possible, the judicialization of disputes. And this is so for several reasons. Firstly, because recourse to the courts of justice would greatly delay the resolution of the dispute and would lead to the saturation of the judicial bodies, and secondly because of the scarce economic entity that in most cases these disputes present, which makes the judicial system inadequate in most cases. Therefore, consumer protection is always important because of its repercussions on the economic and the single market, but it is especially important in the field of preferred sectors, because they are basic services: transport, electronic communications and energy, where the lack of protection for users can lead to their greatest vulnerability by not being able to minimize the price and maximize utility, with the consequent risk of social exclusion.
