Ground Handling - EU Council Directive 96/67/EC
Hola - it was a requirement of the Council of the EU that by 1999 airports with a pax volume in excess of 2mil were REQUIRED to provide airlines with a choice a MINIMUM of two GHS options. This directive was in direct response the the old model of European GHS (which can still be found in the US) where either the State or the Airline (in particular legacy carriers like BA or KLM) operated all GHS out of their hubs. This meant there was no competition and these airlines could essentially charge what they liked. As we see today, there are many airport GHS operators (Servisair, Swissport) - and this is due to the requirements set out by the EU Council Directive 96/67/EC in 1996 to be brought into effect at all EU airports from 1 Jan 1999 but no later than 31 Dec 2002. You can find this directive online - but it's quite dense and fairly heavy reading. The articles you want in particular are Articles (1c) and (6) - hope this helps.