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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 6 - Page 10

Credit where credit is due

Carole Tongue is Labour Member of the European Parliament for London East, here she trumpets one EU success and muses on the chances of another.

CONSTITUENTS OFTEN ASK ME what has the European Union done for me? It is often hard to answer this, because the previous Conservative government regularly claimed to have invented the more popular European rules.

On the other hand, they blamed unpopular measures (that they had supported behind closed doors) on Brussels. There is a shining exception to this. John Major's government battled to oppose the working time directive. They blocked it for six years before being defeated in the European courts. Thanks to this rule (which is fully supported by Tony Blair's government) over 2.4 million people have been given paid holidays for the first time.

This is a family-friendly law. London has benefited from it more than almost anywhere else in the UK. This rule means that 150,000 in the catering industry alone have had their holidays lengthened to three weeks and London has the largest catering sector in Britain. In November, this will rise to four weeks. Until recently, many of these workers had NO paid holidays at all. It is vital that they can now enjoy the simple pleasures of home and family life. It is wrong to deny people paid holidays.

Carole Tongue

British employees will no longer have to wait six years to be given rights that are enjoyed in every other EU country. It is a perfect example of Euro MPs and a positive government working together to bring real improvements to the lives of Londoners.

June 10th 1999 Euro Elections

For Trade Unionists and Labour supporters, the Euro-elections are a golden opportunity to help the Conservative Party to fully self-destruct. In ruling out entry to the European single currency for ten years William Hague has voluntarily painted himself into a corner. Rumours abound of a Pro-Euro Conservative challenge on June 10th and all of the Tory truces that have been agreed in the last few weeks are already straining at the seams. We don't know for certain if the European single currency will be a success, helping strengthen European economies and creating jobs. But whatever happens, the Tories are determined not to join.

Choose and Decide

If the Euro does run successfully, creating jobs and prosperity, why not put it to an referendum of all the British people? This is what Tony Blair has promised. Voters will have a very clear choice. They can vote for the Tories, the party that is committed to abandoning all of our options no matter what the cost. Or they can vote for Labour who support, in principle, Britain joining a successful single European currency. Labour will only commit Britain to join a single currency if it is in the country's best interest to do so. And we will only do so with the permission of the British people - who will be given a final say in a referendum. When the time is right, Tony Blair will ask the people to decide. The Tories have already decided what they think, and reality will not make any difference to them - or not for at least ten years, anyway!

Details of Carole's work, and information about the EU can be found on her website at:

http://www.poptel.org.uk/carole-tongue

Training

European 'pathways' confirmed but Leonardo doubts persist

AS REPORTED IN THE LAST issue of European Review, late last year the European Parliament debated the promotion of European Pathways in work-linked training as well as the related Leonardo vocational training programme. Since then the pathways proposal has been adopted by the Council of Europe and published in the Official Journal of the EU and a further debate on Leonardo II has been held. 'Europass Training' will enable people undergoing work-linked training to continue this in a different member state and to have this taken into account in their home country. Trainees will carry a document by this name which will specify the training undertaken, the qualification to which it leads and the fact that the pathway forms part of the home country's system. €7.3 million was allocated to the scheme.

On March 23rd the European Parliament debated the programme for the second phase of Leonardo and there was criticism of the first. Susan Waddington (Leicester, PES) reminded MEPs that it had been singled out for detailed scrutiny by the Independent Enquiry Committee (Committee of Experts) which had discovered 'mismanagement, fraud, secrecy and nepotism' and, she added, 'the Commission has let us down'. Beneficiaries had not received a proper entitlement as a result of mismanagement by the contractor, she said. Replying for the Commission, Erkki Liikanen accepted 30 amendments designed to ensure quality training and to tighten up controls over the programmes.

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On the other hand, they blamed unpopular measures (that they had supported behind closed doors) on Brussels. There is a shining exception to this. John Major's government battled to oppose the working time directive. They blocked it for six years before being defeated in the European courts. Thanks to this rule (which is fully supported by Tony Blair's government) over 2.4 million people have been given paid holidays for the first time.		This is a family-friendly law. London has benefited from it more than almost anywhere else in the UK. This rule means that 150,000 in the catering industry alone have had their holidays lengthened to three weeks and London has the largest catering sector in Britain. In November, this will rise to four weeks. Until recently, many of these workers had NO paid holidays at all. It is vital that they can now enjoy the simple pleasures of home and family life. It is wrong to deny people paid holidays.
	Carole Tongue