In order to increase legal certainty and transparency in the application of state aid rules to services of general interest the Commission announced in its Report to the Laeken European Council its intention to establish a Community framework for state aid granted for services of general eonomic interest, and then, if and to the extent justified by the experiencegained with the application of this framework, adopt a block exemption regulation in the area of services of general economic interest.

In order to increase legal certainty and transparency in the application of state aid rules to services of general interest the Commission announced in its Report to the Laeken European Council its intention to establish a Community framework for state aid granted for services of general eonomic interest, and then, if and to the extent justified by the experiencegained with the application of this framework, adopt a block exemption regulation in the area of services of general economic interest.

[10] For the evaluation of the compatibility of compensations to public broadcasters reference should also be made to the Protocol on the system of public broadcasting in the Member States, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, amending the Treaty on European Union (in force since 1st May 1999), OJ C 340, 10.11.1997, p. 109, and to the Commission communication on the application of state aid rules to public service broadcasting of 17.10.2001

The Council has adopted a Convention to facilitate mutual judicial assistance between the authorities of the Member States (police, customs and courts) in order to improve the speed and efficiency of judicial cooperation.

If the obligation to indicate the unit price were to constitute an excessive burden for certain small retail businesses because of the number of products on sale, the sales area, the nature of the place of sale, specific conditions of sale where the product is not directly accessible for the consumer or certain forms of business, such as certain types of itinerant trade, Member States may, for a transitional period following the date referred to in Article 11 (1), provide that the obligation to indicate the unit price of products other than those sold in bulk, which are sold in the said businesses, shall not apply, subject to Article 12.

With regard to the latter, the principle should be observed that, unless the State is acting as would a private investor in a market economy, capital injections involve State aid (15); provision by the State of services in kind, such as access to and use of State infrastructure, facilities or privileged information (for instance, information about debtors gathered by embassies) on terms not reflecting their cost; and reinsurance by the State, either directly, or indirectly via a public or publicly supported export-credit insurer, on terms more favourable than those available from the private reinsurance market, which leads either to un ...[+++]der-pricing of the reinsurance or to the artificial creation of capacity that would not be forthcoming from the private market.