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In recent years the European Commission has often been responsible for union-friendly legislation, such as the Working Time Directive. However there has always been a liberalisation agenda which is more antagonistic to their aims. Now a directive proposed by the Internal Market Commissioner to open up competition in public services has raised hackles in the Labour Movement.
A DIRECTIVE ON SERVICES OF GENERAL INTEREST does not appear to be the kind of measure to stir up opposition or even confrontation among those who keep an eye on forthcoming EU legislation but hidden behind the bland title is the sight of 'the fabric of Europe falling apart'. At least this was the view of Anna Salfi, President of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) at their recent congress in Stockholm. Delegates passed an emergency resolution condemning what she called the 'Frankenstein' directive proposed by Commissioner Frits Bolkestein. General Secretary Carolla Fischbach-Pyttel said: 'Commissioner Bolkestein does not want people to understand, hoping that it would slip by without discussion', adding that this piece of 'legal gobbly-gook' could devastate Europe's public services.
The proposal has certainly not slipped by in Belgium where demonstrations have already been held against it. Commissioner Bolkestein did not endear himself to the unions with his reaction to these. In a speech to the Congress, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) General Secretary John Monks called for an unequivocal apology by Commissioner Bolkestein, and on behalf of the European Commission as a whole, for his reported comments likening the Belgian workers to 'racists and extreme nationalists'.
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Carola Fischbach-Pyttel and Anna Salfi, President and General Secretary of EPSU | |
Concerning the substance of the directive itself, Mr. Monks was hardly less critical. He made it clear that the ETUC supported an EU single market in services: 'But not at the expense of European and national social standards, labour law, ...health and safety and collective agreements'. In the ETUC's view the directive makes no distinction between services such as retailing and property development and those like health care where there is no simple supplier-consumer relationship, and it does not even make clear which services are to be included. However by allowing providers to be subject to regulation only in their 'country of origin', the unions feel that companies will be tempted to move to the Member States with the laxest standards intitiating a 'downward spiral of deregulation'.
Dealing specifically with the health sector, John Monks rejected the Commissioner's charge that the trade unions were 'simply against patient mobility'. The way the proposal dealt with mobility would cause lower cost Member States to attract patients from richer ones to gain high re-imbursement payments, thus weakening the service for their own nationals. It would introduce 'mobility on the basis of ability to pay and not on the basis of need'. He urged Mr.Bolkestein to meet union leaders as soon as possible to engage in 'a real debate on substance'.
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