It should come as no great surprise that Austrian Chancellor and current holder of the EU presidency Wolfgang Schuessel has ruled out making any “substantial” changes to the rejected EU constitution. He argues that the substance of the constitution, which was soundly trounced by French and Dutch voters last year, must remain unchanged, as “not a single head of state or government called into question the substance of the treaty.”
This mindset betrays the thinking within EU circles, which believes that EU elites must decide what is good for the people without actually asking anybody else. Schuessel claims that the “only way out” is to hold an EU-wide referendum on the constitution at the same time as the 2009 European Parliament elections. This would allow EU elites to confuse matters further and force member states into a nascent European superstate even if their electorates voted No.
In other words, as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put it in the House of Commons last month, the EU constitution cannot proceed “unless there is an overturning of the French and Dutch No votes.” If the peoples of France and The Netherlands had proved more docile and backed the plans to create a deeply authoritarian country called Europe, all talk of “overturning” votes would have been quietly dropped.
Unfortunately, this open contempt for democracy is not new or confined to the failed EU constitution. On May 29 – exactly a year after the French had rejected the EU constitution – EU institutions agreed a new text for a controversial services directive, which promises an orgy of privatisation. The original text, first presented by commissioner Frits Bolkstein back in 2001, contained the so-called “country of origin” principle which exempted foreign companies from the laws of host countries that they operated in. Under these arrangements, minimum wage levels and health and safety standards could be ignored, allowing companies in member states with minimal labour laws to undercut national standards. In order to establish this new order, the directive gives the EU European Court of Justice (ECJ) the power to deem which national laws get in the way of service provision markets.
Despite the huge protests against this neoliberal charter which forced the removal of any mention of the offending country of origin principle, EU internal market commissioner Charles McCreevy has declared that the original intent of the directive remains. “Article 16 fully recognises the right to provide services on a cross-border basis and sets out clearly the kind of requirements on incoming service providers that have to be abolished in line with ECJ case law,” he told the Council of Ministers.
McCreevy has also indicated that the European Commission is working on legislation for sectors exempted from the directive, including health care, to be opened up to competition as well as reinserting the country of origin principle. “The commission which produced the ‘country of origin’ principle, which was removed from the final text of the directive, will clearly return to it as a matter of course,” he said.
This directive is, quite simply, a mechanism for introducing “free-market” competition to all services within the EU, creating the conditions for a race to the bottom for wages and conditions. This would increase “social dumping,” displacing workers with cheap foreign labour, undermine standards and feed the racist far-right.
The text must be now translated into over 20 languages and there will be a period of three years for member states to comply, despite the fact that no electorate in Europe has voted for it. TUC1 policy, which was decided overwhelmingly at the 2005 Congress, is to oppose the EU constitution, the services directive and other neoliberal EU diktats which demand the privatisation of the railways, the post office and other essential public services.
Instead of Congress House pretending that this pernicious directive has been “de-fanged,” it is time that TUC policy was acted upon for the sake of all those who rely on decent public services.
The services directive is not yet a reality and trade unionists across Europe must ensure that it stays that way.
Brian Denny is a spokesman for Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution. This article was first published in the Morning Star
Notes
1. Trades Union Congress, the only significant federation of British trade unions.
It should come as no great surprise that Austrian Chancellor and current holder of the EU presidency Wolfgang Schuessel has ruled out making any “substantial” changes to the rejected EU constitution. He argues that the substance of the constitution, which was soundly trounced by French and Dutch voters last year, must remain unchanged, as “not a single head of state or government called into question the substance of the treaty.”
This mindset betrays the thinking within EU circles, which believes that EU elites must decide what is good for the people without actually asking anybody else. Schuessel claims that the “only way out” is to hold an EU-wide referendum on the constitution at the same time as the 2009 European Parliament elections. This would allow EU elites to confuse matters further and force member states into a nascent European superstate even if their electorates voted No.
In other words, as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put it in the House of Commons last month, the EU constitution cannot proceed “unless there is an overturning of the French and Dutch No votes.” If the peoples of France and The Netherlands had proved more docile and backed the plans to create a deeply authoritarian country called Europe, all talk of “overturning” votes would have been quietly dropped.
Unfortunately, this open contempt for democracy is not new or confined to the failed EU constitution. On May 29 – exactly a year after the French had rejected the EU constitution – EU institutions agreed a new text for a controversial services directive, which promises an orgy of privatisation. The original text, first presented by commissioner Frits Bolkstein back in 2001, contained the so-called “country of origin” principle which exempted foreign companies from the laws of host countries that they operated in. Under these arrangements, minimum wage levels and health and safety standards could be ignored, allowing companies in member states with minimal labour laws to undercut national standards. In order to establish this new order, the directive gives the EU European Court of Justice (ECJ) the power to deem which national laws get in the way of service provision markets.
Despite the huge protests against this neoliberal charter which forced the removal of any mention of the offending country of origin principle, EU internal market commissioner Charles McCreevy has declared that the original intent of the directive remains. “Article 16 fully recognises the right to provide services on a cross-border basis and sets out clearly the kind of requirements on incoming service providers that have to be abolished in line with ECJ case law,” he told the Council of Ministers.
McCreevy has also indicated that the European Commission is working on legislation for sectors exempted from the directive, including health care, to be opened up to competition as well as reinserting the country of origin principle. “The commission which produced the ‘country of origin’ principle, which was removed from the final text of the directive, will clearly return to it as a matter of course,” he said.
This directive is, quite simply, a mechanism for introducing “free-market” competition to all services within the EU, creating the conditions for a race to the bottom for wages and conditions. This would increase “social dumping,” displacing workers with cheap foreign labour, undermine standards and feed the racist far-right.
The text must be now translated into over 20 languages and there will be a period of three years for member states to comply, despite the fact that no electorate in Europe has voted for it. TUC1 policy, which was decided overwhelmingly at the 2005 Congress, is to oppose the EU constitution, the services directive and other neoliberal EU diktats which demand the privatisation of the railways, the post office and other essential public services.
Instead of Congress House pretending that this pernicious directive has been “de-fanged,” it is time that TUC policy was acted upon for the sake of all those who rely on decent public services.
The services directive is not yet a reality and trade unionists across Europe must ensure that it stays that way.
Brian Denny is a spokesman for Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution. This article was first published in the Morning Star
Notes
1. Trades Union Congress, the only significant federation of British trade unions.
See also
http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/Denny5.htm