Steve McGiffen | ukwatch.net

European Parliament joins stampede away from democracy

Ellie Keen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:49:05 +0000

The European Parliament changed its rules this month.

Anyone still reading?

Surely the European Parliament doesn’t have any real power anyway?

Surely it’s just a talking shop where pompous windbags repeatedly stand up to demonstrate their “European” credentials while the rest of us get on with our lives?

Well, not quite.

Certainly the “pompous windbags” part is true, though it’s hardly fair to the minority of Euro-MPs who have tried to stand in the way as the European Union has trampled over our rights as citizens, workers, consumers, as human beings.

The part about it not having any real power is nonsense, however. Increasingly, the European Parliament has what is known in EU circles as “co-decision power”, which means just what the phrase says. In a growing number of legislative areas, including virtually all environmental issues and most social and labour matters, the assembly is an equal partner with the Council of Ministers, the body which directly represents the twenty-seven member states. Its powers have grown with each successive treaty since Maastricht, in 1992.

The “europhiles” would have us believe that this means that the EU’s famous “democratic deficit” is being closed, but this simply isn’t the case. The new powers granted to the European Parliament have not been at the expense of unelected centralised institutions but, on the contrary, they have been transferred from elected national parliaments and elected national governments.

When I first worked as an assistant to a Labour Euro-MP 23 years ago, corporate lobbyists were thin on the ground. Now, you can’t move for the representatives of major corporations who use (sometimes quite literally) foot in the door techniques to get the attention of MEPs whose votes now exercise a huge influence on Europe-wide legislation.

So the fact that the European Parliament has just voted to do away with its own democratic procedures should concern us.

This is especially the case when you consider the response to the Irish people’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. Just a few days later, the leaders of the 27 held a meeting on the implementation of this same treaty. Their response to the Irish vote? It didn’t even appear on the agenda!

The European Parliament’s rule change means that the two big political groups, the Tweedledum of the centre-right European People’s Party and the Tweedledee of Labour’s so-called Party of European Socialists, will now exercise complete control over business conducted in the assembly.

Firstly, twenty-five members from seven countries instead of twenty from six will be required to form a political group. Two existing groups, the euro-sceptic Independence/Democracy Group (ID) and the rightwing Union for a Europe of the Nations (UEN) would fail one or the other test.

The argument that the new rules will make it harder for fascists to form a group is a disgrace to anyone on the left that uses it. Fascists must be confronted politically in elected assembles as well as out on the streets, not by procedural trickery.

A further rule will exclude MEPs from forming groups unless they hold similar political opinions. The ID group would also fall foul of this, containing as it does MEPs from the right, as well as some who hold quite progressive opinions. They are bound together by a belief in the primacy of national sovereignty, but it is unclear under the new rules whether this will be enough.

Even the United Left Group could have problems with this rule. The full name of the group, which contains all MEPs to the left of social democratic and labour parties, is the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL).

Its long-winded title reflects genuine tensions within the group to do with historic splits which go back to the range of attitudes to the Soviet Union found on the European anti-capitalist left. But it isn’t all history, and quite serious differences remain.

The group is held together, however, by its commitment to burying those differences in order to combat neo-liberalism, but when it comes, for example, to reform of the EU’s agricultural policies, parties from north and south will often vote different ways.

Hence the “confederal”. The individual national parties retain their autonomy.

The Greens form a group with progressive regionalists, the Greens/EFA. The latter element, which includes Plaed Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists, organises as a group-within-a-group, as does the Nordic Green Left within the GUE/NGL. Once again, it is unclear whether this will continue to be acceptable.

This aspect of the new rules will also make life harder for MEPs who are expelled from their groups for not toeing the line. As things stand, other groups will often invite them to join. Admittedly, this is largely out of self-interest. In the European Parliament, bigger means better. More money, more speaking time, more kudos.

Yet there is another motive, which is a desire to see men and women who were, after all, elected by the people of their countries, allowed to continue to do their jobs. This is apparently of no concern to the two big groups.

In another change, a totally undemocratic “filter system”, purportedly designed to eliminate “silly, irrelevant or offensive questions” was also installed. Who will decide which questions fall into these categories? The holder of the European Parliament presidency, a job carved out between the two big groups, of course.

As the European Parliament acquires more and more power, it becomes ever more important to the antidemocratic forces now ruling Europe to keep it under control. The rule changes may not seem to be of that much importance when set against the blatant contempt for democracy shown in the EU establishment’s reaction to successive referendum defeats, but they are another small but significant indication that, unless we wake up to what is going on, democracy may turn out to have been a whim of the twentieth century.

Steve McGiffen is Spectrezine’s editor. From 1986 to 1999 he worked as an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament, and then spent five years as a member of the secretariat of the United European Left political group.

Another Treaty That Won't Lie Down

Ellie Keen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:37:53 +0000

The Irish government, obliged by its own national constitution to put the question of the Lisbon Treaty to the vote, will win little sympathy from its ‘partners’ in the European Union.

Those national leaders who did not dare to put the matter to the vote, and those who were bullied out of doing so by more powerful actors in the EU drama – the Commission and the big member states – will breathe a sigh of relief that they cannot be blamed for this farce.

When EU leaders gather for their regular summit meeting in Brussels at the end of this week, the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is going to have some explaining to do.

The instructions from Brussels were quite clear.

A second round of ‘No’ votes must be avoided at all costs.

You might compare the Taoiseach’s position to that of a minor gang leader required to explain to a mafia boss why takings are down from his protection rackets.

He can whinge all he likes about constitutional obligations, but having caused this mess he will be expected to offer a feasible way out of the brown stuff into which the leaders gathered in Brussels find themselves sinking.

Of course, there is only one honest, democratic way out, and that is to abandon the whole project.

The constitutional position is quite clear.

The Lisbon Treaty, like the virtually identical Constitutional Treaty before it, is dead.

And yet what is almost certain to happen is that a set of clearly rejected constitutional arrangements will be imposed on the peoples of 27 countries.

Three countries which held popular votes have actually rejected one or the other version.

Only Spain and Luxembourg held referenda which resulted in approval, but what matters here is not the three-two scoreline.

The rules in the case of both the Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty were simple.

If one country rejected either, it fell.

Modern European politics is, however, a game which can be halted at any time by one team, the ruling elite, which can then proceed to change the rules.

It also gets to appoint the referee.

People voted against these treaties for a variety of reasons.

If Lisbon is imposed, small countries will lose power.

National institutions under democratic control, or at least influence, will see their powers transferred to unelected and unanswerable bodies.

National vetoes will disappear across a range of policy areas, so that ever more laws can be imposed which have the assent of neither the government nor the parliament of the member state involved.

A European army will be born.

And neoliberal economic policies which are good for no-one but multinational corporations and international criminals will be reinforced.

The Irish in particular could see much to alarm them in a treaty which would jeopardise their military neutrality, undermine their agriculture and allow unprecedented interference in their system of taxation, until recently an unquestioned national preserve.

Their reasons for voting ‘no’ are, however, their own affair.

As in other contexts, no means no, whatever motives may lie behind it.

Yet the Taoiseach has said only that there is no “quick fix”.

He has also said that Ireland will do its best not to halt what he describes as “the ambitious project of EU reform”.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, meanwhile, has joined the leaders of many EU member states in refusing to declare the treaty dead.

The British government has said that the ratification process will continue.

So, you can vote Yes, you can vote No, but the process is more akin to a multiple choice test than an election, and don’t worry, if you don’t get the answer right the first time, you’ll likely be given a second chance.

Similarly, depending on where you live you can vote social democrat, Labour, Christian Democrat, Liberal, Communist or for the Man in the Moon, but don’t expect it to make any serious difference to the way in which your country is governed, the decisions your government takes, or life in general.

There are now only two sets of interests which really matter: those of multinational corporations and those, sometimes still slightly different, of the governments and political parties which now exist primarily to serve their interests.

This includes not just conservatives but Europe’s social democratic and labour parties, most Green parties – our own being an honourable exception – and the whole ragbag of centre-left, centrist and right wing groups which are increasingly indistinguishable at the level of policy.

So, viciously anti-trade union labour rulings by the European Court of Justice go unchallenged by parties which were created by those same trade unions.

And the EU’s ‘flexicurity’ proposals, which translate as flexibility for us, and security for them, are enthusiastically supported by parties built by working people to defend their interests

The European Union, which likes to present its opponents as narrow nationalists and backward-looking xenophobes, is dragging us back to a time before working people could demand, if nothing else, that they be treated with respect, paid a living wage, and allowed to organise in pursuit of their legitimate demands.

By imposing neoliberal economics on twenty-seven member states, the EU is making real international cooperation, of the kind needed to confront the crises facing us in a world increasingly spinning out of control, impossible.

The Irish people, like those of France and the Netherlands before them, have had the courage and good sense to vote to reject the heinous Lisbon Treaty and thereby give us a further chance to confront those who would deprive us of our rights and of our livelihoods.

This time we must seize it with both hands.

The End of Democracy

Ellie Keen — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:43:13 +0000

Over the last few years the political role of the European Court of Justice has become increasingly evident. It has, at the same time, become far more overtly conservative, leaning towards an extreme ‘free market’ philosophy which favours privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation. In favouring these policies, moreover, it has moved to weaken any opposition to them.

This is why the ECJ ruled recently that wages agreed under the tripartite system which prevails in much of the continent need not be respected by foreign firms. Under the system, known in the Netherlands as the Collective Labour Agreement and under similar names elsewhere, employers, unions and government meet once a year to agree rates for particular trades in particular sectors.

This system has its drawbacks, but it does prevent wage competition between workers and undercutting of one firm by another by means of wage reductions. It is part of the post-war settlement, a Cold War product designed to show that there were alternatives to Soviet-style socialism which could offer working people a decent life.

The system has stood more-or-less unchallenged, until now. Because, of course, if foreign firms may undercut their domestic rivals, and any firm may register in any member state – thus becoming a ‘foreign firm’ – then the days of the Collective Labour Agreement are numbered indeed. As for the kind of non-statutory wage agreements which characterise collective bargaining in Britain, these can be forgotten, at least as far as any legal protection goes.

As things stand, the minimum wage itself is not under immediate threat. Minimum rates for sectors and trades are now, however, enforceable, if at all, only by industrial muscle.

All of this would be bad enough if this attack on the rights of trade unionists, and of European Union member states, went no further than this particular issue, important though it is. In fact, however, the ECJ ruling forms part of a wider pattern of abuse which is affecting not only our rights as workers but every aspect of our lives.

This is the phenomenon which has been dubbed ‘depoliticisation’.

The word may be newly-coined and hard to fit into a line of poetry, but its meaning is simple enough. Decisions which have traditionally been taken, in democracies, by institutions answerable to an electorate, are now taken by unelected bodies deliberately constructed to be impervious to political pressure.

Last week, two labour lawyers writing in a Swedish newspaper lamented the way in which “the political role of the ECJ in the development of EU law has become increasingly apparent” and that “through the back door, the judges have gained political power that in practice supersedes that of policy makers.”

Here, the issue of concern was once again the rights of workers, and the institution involved was the ECJ.
It could easily, however, have been another area of concern – an environmental matter, say, or public ownership of essential services – and the ruling could have been one from the European Commission, or the World Trade Organisation – but the same phenomenon of depoliticisation would have been apparent.

Of course, ‘depoliticisation’ does not mean that these issues or these decisions have really been removed from politics. It is simply that this is what the ruling elite, through the ideas which they propagate through their media and by other means, would have us believe.
We cannot have essential service providers in secure public ownership, protected from market forces and under an obligation to provide a service to everyone, including those on low incomes. This is not because we voted for a right-wing government which does not favour such things, but because it would conflict with the freedom to establish a business, the obligation to tender out public procurement contracts, and so on, “freedoms” written into the EU treaty, into trade treaties and other agreements effectively beyond democartic control.
We cannot have an expansive monetary policy, not because we voted for a restrictive policy, but because the European Central Bank makes the rules, even for member states outside the euro-zone.

We cannot write to ask a government minister or our MEP to propose a particular change in European law unless there happens to be a relevant proposal before the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, because only the unelected European Commission has the right to propose new legislation.

We cannot refuse to have genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our country because an EU directive says that, except under extremely limited conditions, we have to have them.

And we cannot elect a government on the basis of manifesto commitments to defend public ownership, propose democratising changes in the way European laws are made or keep GMOs out of our farms and food shops, unless that government proposes to withdraw from the EU.

In fact, even that would not restore democracy, because this is not, in fact, a problem caused simply by EU membership.
The GMO example originates, in fact, in a ruling of the World Trade Organization, which put pressure on the EU to force member states to lift restrictions.

No doubt a truly politically independent Britain would suffer similar pressures.

Increasingly, the range of policies available to national governments, including elected national governments answerable to elected national parliaments, is restricted by their obligations under loan agreements, trade and investment treaties, and full-blown regional arrangements such as the EU or NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Swedish lawyers who complained of the ECJ’s growing political power called for the Court to be made more accountable, and for the appointments of judges to be subject to scrutiny by the European Parliament.

I would not oppose such measures, but they seem to me to miss the most important point.

Elections were once about, amongst other things, determining the mix of social ownership and private economic activity within the economy.
Now, however, the ‘market’ is not to be questioned.

It has been redefined as the equivalent of a basic human right.

Just as the European Court of Human Rights defends the rights of citizens of the Council of Europe’s member states not to be sentenced to death, not to be imprisoned without fair trial, and not to be discriminated against on grounds of their race or gender, so the EU’s European Court of Justice defends the ‘right’ to trade, to establish a business or corporation, to undercut a non-profit public service by paying lower wages or avoiding universal provision obligations.

In this way, decisions which should be in all of our hands are removed from the realm of political debate and thus removed from democracy entirely.

The Water Thieves

Ellie Keen — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:02:29 +0000

The Morning Star recently reported the outrage caused in Britain by the official regulator Ofwat’s approval of increased sewage and water bills. Averaging 5.8%, or over £300, they will hit pensioners and others on low incomes hard. Some areas, including North Wales – a region hardly famed for its arid climate – will see bills rise even more.

What people rightly angered by this profiteering may not have known was that this was far from being a purely British phenomenon. It is, in fact, part of a world-wide water-grab being conducted by major corporations, aided by the usual suspects, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

The IMF imposes privatisation of essential services on any country desperate enough to go to it for a loan, or seeking debt relief. The EU is attempting to force developing countries to open their services markets to European corporate investment as it negotiates trade deals.

Known as ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ (EPAs) these seek to impose ‘free trade’ on poorer countries, making it impossible for them to develop manufacturing and processing industries in the face of foreign competition. In addition, the EU is determined to push countries into removing restrictions on foreign (for which read corporate) investment, including in service sectors. As is the case within Europe, publicly-owned service providers will simply be classed as monopolies, and any attempt to defend or improve them as supporting a restrictive monopoly practice.

Since the late 1980s, the European Commission has turned a jaundiced eye on publicly-owned companies of all kinds. In its ultra-liberalising view a public service which is owned by the people is no different to any other monopoly. The fact that Belgium, for example, has a legal bar on privatising water is, in this way of seeing things, merely a ‘restraint of trade’, as it prevents private companies from competing for contracts within the sector. Belgium can no longer claim that this is Belgium’s business and if any other country doesn’t like it they can lump it.

This is an exclusion whose days are numbered.

As a result of EU rules implicit in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, first made explicit thirty years later in the Single European Act and intensified with every new European treaty since, a foreign water privateer such as the French Vivendi has the right to muscle in on the Belgian ‘market’ for water, and it is only a matter of time before someone insists on exercising that right. The facts that privatisation of water does not deliver what it claims to, and that the Belgian people might like the current arrangements or want to decide for themselves how they might be improved, are, in the EU’s view, irrelevant.

Fortunately, reality is having its say. In France – the lair of the water privateers – around forty local authorities, including Paris, have taken water back into public ownership in the last decade. A rash of privatisations had followed the introduction of a new law in 1992. A few years of experience of rising prices and deteriorating levels of service were enough for most French people, however, and while French corporations scour the world looking for water to grab, France itself is turning away from this bogus “solution”.

As well as trade negotiations, the EU organises the theft of the people’s property outside Europe through the European Union Water Initiative (EUWI). This makes it clear that the EU sees its prime responsibility as being to EU-based corporations, rather than to people in developing countries lacking access to clean, usable water. The fact that water is a necessity makes it, in the Commission’s worldview, a great business opportunity, rather than a human right. The 1.4 billion people in the world who are without clean water and the 2.5 billion without even basic sanitation are potential sources of profit. The Millennium Development Goal of halving these numbers by 2015 becomes simply a commitment to line the pockets of corporate shareholders.

The fact is, in rich countries or poor, there is no way to make a service provider committed to delivering wholesome water and effective sanitation to every home into a profitable business. This is why, in common with other vital services such as public transport and postal delivery, it was in public ownership in the first place.

Privatisation is simply another way of transferring public wealth into private pockets. This is as true in Africa as it is in Accrington. Where a population is relatively wealthy, as in Britain, the money will come direct from the people’s pockets, in the form not only of raised prices but also in the taxes needed to cover the subsidies which are in reality the only source of ‘profit’ for the privateers.

Where the people are too poor to pay up, one of two things will happen. Services will improve, if at all, only for the rich. Or exceptions may be found in urban areas, but only if development monies which originate with those same taxpayers in Europe and other wealthier parts of the world cover the costs, and then some. The market can deliver only to those who can pay. The poor will not get water, being too poor to pay for it, unless someone else pays for them.

25 million people a year die as a result of water-related diseases. Most readers would, I hope, be only too happy to see some of their taxes go to addressing the stark inequalities which lie behind these wasted lives. Lining the pockets of Vivendi’s shareholders, however, is likely to be less popular.

The real solution is, of course, to use our development monies, our power as a trading bloc and our long experience and accumulated expertise to work with those communities and public utilities in developing countries which are really trying to solve this most fundamental of problems.

Partnerships between public utilities in Europe and developing countries – known as PUPs – to share expertise and improve service; innovative thinking such as the small solidarity levy paid by customers of Milan’s publicly-owned water company; and a concerted effort to achieve and go beyond the UN’s Millennium Development Goal are what will help to end the thirst, hunger and disease which are the results of inadequate water supply and sanitation.

Steve McGiffen is editor of Spectre and writes monthly column for the Morning Star, where this article first appeared.

Snouts in the Trough... but not yet

Ellie Keen — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:03:18 +0000

Since the partial exclusion of health care from the liberalisation of services brought about by the EU’s notorious directive of 2005, we have been waiting with some trepidation for the European Commission to make its next move.

To this writer – and I hope also to his readers – a functioning, efficient, equitably funded and affordable system of health care is the absolute fundamental of a civilised society.

Others look at health care through different eyes, of course.

Here is a multi-billion pound industry the widespread public ownership of which means one less well-swilled trough into which piggy can stick his snout.

And since this figurative individual (and my apologies to real pigs, whose treatment at the hands of the EU is even worse than our own) is the one dearest to the European Commission’s heart, it was only a matter of time before the Eurocrats sought to ensure that the weakly-worded, unconvincing health care exclusion found its way into the clinical waste bin of history.

So where is the Commission’s proposal on the liberalisation of health care services, which we were, in the end, promised for last November?

It was the European Parliament, which increasingly vies with it in its enthusiasm to do corporate capital’s bidding, which last May called on the Commission to reintroduce health services into the Services Directive.

In a report described even by social democrats as “a total catastrophe”, it was proposed that health care be robbed of its ‘privileged’ position as an essential service.

The Parliament wants to see an unrestricted patient mobility across the EU’s internal borders, which it is well aware would make publicly-owned and collectively-financed health care services untenable.

It wants the Commission to enable codification of European Court of Justice case law applying to the mobility of services.

This would ensure that internal market rules, the freedom to provide services and free movement all apply to health services, and that these principles are put beyond doubt.

In fact, the Commission’s work programme for 2007 already contained such a proposal, but the Parliament wanted action.

Its report was an attempt to cajole the Commission into smuggling health care services back into the Services Directive.

This would do nothing to address the real problems of Europe’s health care services, which to one degree or another reflect those of the NHS.

Patient mobility may have a role to play, but only if it forms part of a coordinated system of resource pooling based on principles of efficiency and, where appropriate, solidarity.

Collectively-funded health services which are free at point of care – such as almost all NHS treatment – are financed nationally and will remain so for any foreseeable future.

Patient mobility must not be allowed to undermine such services.

EU regulations on the coordination of social protection schemes already deal with many of the real problems arising from cross-border patient mobility, though they have clearly been found wanting when it comes to lining the pockets of private health care providers.

Supplying a high quality and efficient health care infrastructure where people live is, in any case, a much better way to avoid waiting lists for treatment.

Dutch left MEP Kartika Liotard, who initiated the amendment which led to the exclusion of health care from the Services Directive, says that “what we definitely do not need is another bogus ‘balanced compromise’ of the Service Directive type. We demand that health services and social services, in common with all public services and services of general interest, be excluded from internal market and competition rules. High quality health care for all is not a commodity, but a public good.”

Adding that her views had found support from MEPs across the political spectrum, she says that she was “shocked” to see the issue return.

“We fought extremely hard to keep health care services out of the scope of the services directive” says Liotard. “Health care is much too important to allow it to be exposed to unrestrained market forces.”

So does the delay to the European Commission proposal mean that Liotard’s arguments may have prevailed?

Only, unfortunately, in our dreams.

What the hold-up really means is that the Commission, along with all who support the top-down integration of Europe and its transformation into a paradise for corporate capital, are well aware that health care liberalisation will prove about as popular as toothache.

And while this unpopularity is not going to change, the liberalisers are prepared to wait until the most sweeping liberalising measure of all, the renamed European Constitution, is approved by all of the national parliaments and the only electorate which will be allowed to have its say, the Irish.

“EU member state citizens are not expecting still more liberalisation, and certainly not in health care,” Kartika Liotard explains. “The Commission is afraid that resistance to this will throw a spanner in the works when it comes to ratification of the reform treaty. The public would then for once find out the full extent of the EU plans, and perhaps they would also become more critical of the new ‘constitution’.” Far from welcoming the postponement, she describes it as “simply scandalous” and “evidence of a lack of political courage.”.

Heavy political pressure from the Commission has already ensured that after Ireland no other member state will hold a referendum on the reform treaty. “But,” Liotard says, “evidently there is still disquiet and a feeling that until the treaty is finally ratified any proposals which might prove controversial should remain out of sight. This is typical of this Europe: keep everyone sweet until the ink is dry on all of the signatures and then get on with unpopular, far-reaching measures which have long been planned.”

Steve McGiffen edits Spectrezine. This article was written for the Morning Star

Is the EU becoming a 'police superstate'?

Ellie Keen — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:34:41 +0000

As UK prime minister Gordon Brown announces a new range of measures “to combat terrorism” and a report reveals that British police can hold suspects for longer than their colleagues are allowed to in any other nominal democracy, the question of whether Britain is on its way to becoming a police state surely seems less hysterical than it may have done a few years ago.

In fact, the hard-won rights and freedoms of the people of not only Britain but of 26 other European countries are in clear and present danger, under attack not only from Westminster and Washington but from the city from which, to an ever-greater extent, we are ruled – Brussels.

The determination and enforcement of criminal law and the preservation of internal order have, for centuries, been regarded, along with defence from external threats, as the very essence of nationhood.

The corollary of this, as democratic institutions have developed, was that the right to have a say in such matters came to be seen as a fundamental characteristic of citizenship of a free society.

Yet, in the first decade of the 21st century, under the guise of fighting terrorism, this national control of – and popular involvement in – the making and enforcement of criminal law are in serious jeopardy.

Daily, our rights and liberties are being eroded not only by governments against which we at least have the right to vote but by unelected officials operating in secret, answerable only to each other.

To list even the broad elements of every proposal or enactment the effects of which will be to encroach on our freedoms would take hundreds of pages, so here are some examples.

A new surveillance mechanism aimed at air travellers, the Passenger Name Record (PNR) scheme, will shortly be introduced. Based on the system already in place for citizens of EU member states travelling to the United States, the scheme will mean the collection of personal data on all travellers by air in and out of the EU, including credit card details and email addresses. Controls on how this information will be used and by whom are woefully inadequate. The scheme is also designed to be easily extended in scope, should this be deemed necessary, as regards both transport methods and ostensible target groups. The impact assessment by the EU itself speaks of the possibility of “a wider application at a later stage” and goes on to talk about “extending (PNR) to other forms of transport at a later stage,” as well as to internal flights. Of course, none of us wants to be blown to bits, but there is no evidence that this approach of treating everyone as a suspect and depriving people of their most basic rights results in anything but the gathering of mountains of data beyond anyone’s capacity to monitor.

Discriminatory “profiling” of passengers, in which “likely” terrorists are identified through examination of their political and religious views, ethnicity and family background, is simply outrageous. Even this begins to seem almost rational, however, when compared to the European Commission’s proposal that the recently introduced requirement for fingerprints in passports be extended to children aged six and above. Don’t imagine, moreover, that toddlers aren’t under suspicion. It is simply that a child’s fingerprints are not, the Commission laments, “of sufficient quality for one-to-one verification of identity” until they reach the age of six. Expect to see this “problem” included in the next EU research and development programme.

The real purpose of such measures has little to do with the control of terrorism. It is, rather, to make people feel that their every move is being watched, that dangerous people are lurking around every corner, that our neighbours – especially our Muslim neighbours, it has to be said, or anyone about whom there is anything unusual whatsoever – are not to be trusted.

With the world on the brink of serious economic difficulties and the EU assault on working people moving into overdrive, our masters in Brussels are anticipating trouble and equipping themselves with the tools to deal with it. This is revealed most starkly in the establishment by five member states, under the auspices of the European Union and with the right to act in its name inside or outside EU territory, of an international police force along military lines and with military status. Initial participants will be Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands, but the treaty establishing it is open to any EU member or applicant country.

As editor of Statewatch Tony Bunyan said recently, this initiative “brings together armed paramilitary units, some of which are infamous for their behaviour at protests. What lines of accountability for its actions will there be? It will be accountable only to itself.”

Bunyan’s phrase “accountable only to itself” could serve, increasingly, as a description of so many aspects of the European Union and its policies – as well as an epitaph for our rights and freedoms.

Steve McGiffen edits Spectre and writes a monthly column for the Morning Star.

Stop this Cruel Trade

Ellie Keen — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:57:14 +0000

The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK has once again drawn attention to problems which have their origin in the conditions under which farm animals are kept. These conditions are very often not only abysmally cruel, but also injurious both to the health of the animal in question and to anyone who might later eat the unfortunate creature, or anything produced by or from it.

Given that agriculture in Europe floats on a sea of subsidies – and never forget that this means your money and mine – it would be quite easy to improve this situation, simply by making these payments dependent on strict compliance with rules designed to eliminate unnecessary suffering and protect human health and the environment. Use of subsidies to pursue goals which do not relate directly to production levels, known in the EU jargon as ‘cross-compliance measures’, is permitted under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and would give farmers an incentive to improve their practices.

Unfortunately, existing EU rules represent an attempt to “balance” public concerns over health, as well as sensitivities regarding cruelty to animals, against the corporate hunger for profit. It is, after all, hardly surprising that cruelty to animals is so widespread, when you consider what the owners of capital are happy to do to people. It would, therefore, be bad enough if the EU’s inadequate standards were actually enforced. In reality, however, they are widely ignored.

Many of the worst abuses concern the transport of farm animals from one part of the EU to another, or even beyond. The existence of such a trade is an abuse in itself, of course. With rare exceptions, transport of live animals is unnecessary and enforcement of decent standards of treatment would immediately make it cheaper and more profitable to slaughter them before exporting their refrigerated meat.

However, while this trade continues, it must be properly regulated so that maximum journey times are respected. EU law requires that before animals are transported a journey plan be lodged with the relevant authorities, yet from that point on the sector is almost entirely self-policing. Self-policing can only work, if at all, in sectors where most operators obey the rules and stand to lose out if a minority gains a competitive advantage by cutting corners.

This is not the case here. On the contrary, operators, vets and the public authorities seem to be involved in a conspiracy of blind-eye turning. National authorities fear putting their own farmers and food producers at a disadvantage if they enforce the rules and other EU member states do not. A GPS-based system could be centralised, with national authorities being informed of abuses and obliged to act.

Enforcement of the existing rules would be a big step forward, but their inadequacy would mean that animals would continue to suffer. They would also still be exposed to the dangerous pathogens which, as human beings know from direct experience, inevitably afflict mammals when too many are packed together and basic principles of hygiene ignored.

What is needed, as an absolute minimum, is a time limit of eight hours for the transport of animals for slaughter or further fattening. The overcrowding permitted by the current standard must also be addressed, with animals allowed much more space to breathe and move. The transport of very young animals, such as calves under three months of age, should be banned completely.

Under current EU rules the maximum journey time for bovine animals is an appalling 29 hours, after which they must be fed, watered and allowed out into the fresh air before another 29-hour journey is permitted.

Krista van Velzen, a Member of Parliament for the Socialist Party of the Netherlands who has long campaigned for improvements, describes these standards as “good for profit maximalisation, but certainly not for the animals.” Arguing that maximum journey times should be far shorter, Van Velzen also wants to see the structure of farm subsidies reformed so that they do not lead to extra and unnecessary journeys, as is the case with subsidies for the export of dairy cows. Rules should also, she says, take into account such possibilities as extreme weather conditions, obliging transports to be suspended, for example during heat waves. Pointing out that abuses are far too widespread to be seen as isolated incidents, Van Velzen adds that . “it’s not only a question of checks and controls, but also of sanctions. If the law is being broken, action must be taken.”

At least one member state is proving that effective action is indeed possible. In Denmark any breach of the rules leads to immediate withdrawal of the culprit’s licence to transport animals. In most other member states, however, transport firms can continue to operate even after serious breaches.

True, the European Commission has promised to address these issues. In an answer to a parliamentary question tabled by UK Green MEP Caroline Lucas in March of last year, Commissioner Kyprianou said that there were plans “to establish a range of maximum and minimum temperatures for long journeys and standards for satellite navigation systems for road vehicles,” adding that “the satellite navigation system will facilitate the enforcement of travelling time limits.” He also promised to review travelling time limits and loading densities, and pointed out that the stricter enforcement of drivers’ hours by tachograph would also have a positive impact.

This would be good news if it showed any sign of producing results, and it is possible that yet another major food scare involving farm animals will focus minds untouched by suffering. What makes me doubt this is not simply scepticism about the European Commission’s ability to keep its promises, but that it does not get to the real issue. For however useful GPS or the tachograph might be, they represent technological solutions to what is in reality a political problem.

Food production companies, agribusiness corporations and hauliers represent three of the most influential sectors of capital at EU level. They almost always get their way. And these are people to whom the complaints of greedy shareholders are far more moving to the heart than the baleful lowing of a cow being slowly crushed to death in an overcrowded wagon on a boiling hot day.

Steve McGiffen edits Spectre and writes a monthly column for the Morning Star where this article first appeared.

Democracy in Danger

Tim Holmes — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:50:05 +0000

Brian Denny’s recent article (‘They said it…’) demonstrated that politicians in EU member states where no referendum was ever promised or expected are absolutely open about the fact that the revised proposal for a new EU treaty is virtually identical to the one overwhelmingly rejected two years ago by French and Dutch voters.

Denny’s piece was one of a number I have read in a range of newspapers – British and others – making the same point. It is one with which I wholeheartedly agree, one which must be made time and again if we are to force this government to keep its promise. And yet reading it gave me an uneasy feeling.

The article was interesting, useful and, as far as I can see, as impossible to disagree with as the second law of thermodynamics, or the fact that Britain has had an unusually wet summer. But that’s exactly what bothered me.

Like scientists in the States who are forced to defend the theory of evolution against people who purport to believe that the world was created over six days about 6,000 years ago, we are being forced to treat a simple truth as if it were a matter of opinion.

Here are the most significant parts of the proposal which are substantially unchanged:

“all of the provisions deepening the neoliberal character of the EU economy “the creation of the post of President of the European Council with a term of office of two-and-a-half years, renewable once “the creation of a new office of High Representative for Foreign Affairs “the introduction, from 2014, of double majority voting at Council (50% of the states representing 55% of the population will have to approve a proposal) “more policies to be voted by qualified majority, thus abolishing the national veto for these policies “the extension of co-decision (giving the European Parliament more power) “reduction of the number of commissioners and more power to the President of the Commission “‘legal personality’ for the Union, allowing it to sign treaties and other international agreements on behalf of all of the member states “explicit statement of the primacy of EU law over national law.

Given that the above list contains no statement of opinion, it is not open to dispute. Yet we see it disputed. This is, moreover, no isolated incident.

We have seen straightforward facts treated as if they were opinions, and lies as if they were valid matters for debate, in relation to the in relation to the war in Iraq, to numerous cases involving requests for asylum, to repeated outbreaks of infectious diseases on British and other European farms, and to cover-ups of the dangers inherent in genetic modification of food plants, to take just four examples.

Is this important? Haven’t politicians always told lies to gain power, or hold on to it? Perhaps so, but I believe that what is now happening, especially in British politics is different, and that it is profoundly dangerous to our extremely fragile democracy.

This is best illustrated by returning to my main example.

Fact: the statement “the ‘Reform Treaty’ is essentially and substantially the same as the ‘Constitutional Treaty’ on which we were promised there would be a referendum” is simple truth, not opinion.

Fact: the changes, even where they are more than merely cosmetic, are insufficient to justify the government’s assertion that we no longer need a referendum. They include changes in language (no ‘Constitution’), in such matters as the proportions required for a ‘double majority’, and the removal of any reference to the EU flag or anthem, though these will continue to exist.

Fact: the British government’s assertion of the opposite is therefore a downright lie, and an extremely transparent one.

They can get away with this lie only if one of the following conditions exists:

“the British people have in general no knowledge of or interest in the contents of either Treaty, or “they do not believe that they can influence government policies, have seen this repeatedly demonstrated, and have therefore decided there is no point in thinking about it, when there is so much shopping to be done and so many shiny new gadgets to buy “they may find politicians lying to them irritating, but it’s a limited irritation, like the occasional barking of next door’s dog. You can put up with it, because dogs bark and politicians lie and you can’t change nature.

If any of these conditions indeed exist, then the game for people who believe in democracy may be up.

The British people have seen, over the last thirty years, workers’ rights hugely eroded, political debate reduced to an exchange of platitudes, and the emergence of a political elite at least as arrogant and out of touch as the noble circles which famously lost favour in the early 1960s.

We have seen the Labour Party, which whatever else it may have been, was where working people did politics, abolish all of its internal democratic structures.

We have seen the retreat of the state, and with it all possibility of popular influence, from sector after sector of the economy, so that the overfed, leering face of corporate capital has thrust itself into every area of our lives.

We have seen, since the signing of the Single European Act by Thatcher in 1986, successive European treaties remove our democratic rights in area after area of policy.

We have seen, and are seeing, in the name of an entirely bogus ‘war on terror’ and a media-generated fear of allegedly rampant criminality, our most ordinary and in some cases ancient freedoms abolished, surveillance cameras watching us from everywhere and anywhere, and acts of egregious violence – up to and including murder – by police officers enjoying apparent immunity from prosecution.

If we allow this government to renege on its promise to give the British people the right to say whether they are in favour or against the most profound constitutional change of modern times, then we must accept that parliamentary democracy has indeed become the hollow sham that it has always threatened to be, and that sections of the radical left have always argued that it is.

"The Last Fight Let Us Face"

Tim Holmes — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:44:51 +0000

The European Council has now met and issued its orders. An Intergovernmental Conference will soon be convened, charged with coming up with a text which the governments of the twenty-seven member states can approve, one which reflects what they believe themselves to have agreed on. Yet just over two years ago, the people of France and the Netherlands voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed EU constitution, which in its essential features was identical to this document.

Since the European Economic Community began the process of transforming itself into a unified superstate, the peoples of a number of member states and would-be member states have been consulted on several occasions over membership, membership of the European Monetary Union, or approval of treaties which would require changes to their own national constitutions.

These are officially referenda, and some of them were genuinely so. Norway has asked its voters on two occasions whether they wished their country to join the Community, and both times they said no and their answer, though causing some lamentation amongst europhile politicians and ‘business leaders’, was respected.

In many other cases, however, it has been made quite clear that the referendum had a correct answer and an incorrect answer, and that failure to follow the instructions of government and the corporate propaganda machine would result in the unleashing of Famine, Pestilence, War and the other horseman of the apocalypse, the one whose name I can never remember.

In order to avoid the appearance of these sinister equines, electorates getting the wrong answer were sometimes given a second chance. This time, however, it appears that our leaders’ notoriously limited patience has worn too thin for that. The Dutch and French people had not done their homework in the run up to the referenda on the misleadingly-named “Constitutional Treaty”, and therefore failed this important examination. They cannot expect to be allowed a resit.

Of course, they may object, and as the French have such a colourful history of militancy and the Dutch No campaign was led by what is now – with the sole exception of Cyprus – Europe’s biggest radical left party, their objections may take forms difficult to resist. The British, though sadly lacking a significant radical left movement, are for whatever reason none-too-keen on seeing their country dissolved into a superstate. Having promised a referendum, the Labour Party may be forced to deliver or risk being kicked out in a general election which the Conservatives could quite easily, and even honestly, present as a referendum on the new treaty. We shall see.

Elsewhere on spectrezine Anthony Coughlan offers an initial analysis of the new proposed treaty, so I will mention only one aspect which has gone virtually undiscussed in the mainstream press.

Part Three of the Constitutional Treaty will be transposed into the new treaty intact and without controversy. This is the section which gives the EU a permanent neoliberal orientation, and was the principal reason for the No votes in both France and the Netherlands. Yet it seems to have played little part in last week’s debate at Brussels.

As Dutch left MEP Erik Meijer wrote in spectrezine three years ago, “The constitution protects freedom for enterprises and ‘free, unrestricted competition’. What this means in neoliberal Europe has in recent years become ever more clear. Basic services in public transport, post, energy and telecommunications are no longer seen as common problems to be addressed communally, but as a sector of the economy pure and simple. The Lisbon Summit in 2000 encouraged the selling off of such services to major international corporations. Through the compulsory tendering of services which were formerly the responsibility of the state or public authority, it has also become necessary for the remaining public services to compete with others. This means that sooner or later they will disappear, because they are small, caring, and attached to a particular region, and deliberately not equipped to deal with the risks of operating in competition with others. This constitution is in this respect no different from that of Cuba or the former Soviet Union, in that it stipulates the form that the economy will permanently take and prevents any change being made to it by democratic decision. Striving for socialist common ownership of the means of production will become unconstitutional within the EU, as earlier predicted with some enthusiasm by a representative of the right in the European Parliament.”

Meijer goes on to describe the text as one which “clears the way for capitalism, militarism and governmental structures which will continually hinder the working of parliamentary democracy.” It reflects a world in which having a “thriving” defence industry is regarded as having no more moral meaning than having a successful strawberry export trade, a society in which the right to trade freely is the most important of all human rights.

The implications of the equation of capitalism with democracy do not seem to have been fully analysed by the left, and the foisting of this new treaty on Europe’s peoples may well turn out to be part of the price we will pay for that. So I should like to make a start, and suggest what scientists call a “thought experiment”.

Firstly, ask yourself why you are opposed to children of eight being employed in factories. You might, under pressure, be able to think of sound economic reasons which refer to the efficiency of production, the economy’s long-term needs, and so on. But the first reason that will come to you will almost certainly be “because it is wrong”. Forbidding child labour need have no other outcome than preventing children from working. In that respect it differs from, say, a decision on how to improve transport links, which must be justified in terms of outcomes which refer to broader social goods such as wealth maximisation, efficiency and (one hopes) environmental considerations.

Now imagine you believe that the right to trade is so fundamental that it is equivalent to, or more important than, the right of children to an education, to play, to develop freely. You can now argue that this right need have no outcome. Free trade is simply right, and anything which interferes with that right is therefore wrong, even if its outcomes would be desirable.

Freed from the need to argue that market economies are inherently more efficient than any alternative, you will also find yourself freed completely from the need to employ evidence-based arguments. I am opposed to child labour, to female genital mutilation, to slavery, simply because they are wrong, and only secondarily because in each case they may represent an inefficient use of human resources. Even to speak of “efficiency” in such a context might, indeed, be regarded as being in bad taste.

Now, to complete your nightmare, imagine the policy implications of such a fundamentalist belief in the freedom to trade. You are now thinking like a senior IMF or World Bank or European Commission official. Congratulations.

This new treaty embodies just such a belief and will make it the basis of economic law across twenty-seven countries, the unanimous agreement of which will be required for even the slightest modification to be effected. The left – and, indeed, anyone who honestly believes in democracy – must therefore oppose the treaty because it represents the final nail in the coffin of our right to choose what kind of economy we want our countries to adopt. Socialism, which under the favourable conditions prevailing in certain parts of northern Europe managed to have a profound effect on the organisation of societies whose basic economies nevertheless remained capitalist in nature, at the same time in its supposedly revolutionary form produced repressive governments in Russia, eastern Europe and elsewhere. This made its reformist version more attractive to the mass of workers than was “communism”. The flaw in the reformist approach was that despite its massive social achievements it left the solid core of power, the vast bulk of the economy, firmly in the hands of a class which, while it could accommodate itself to social democracy in a particular epoch, would in the end come up against the contradictions of its own system. In order to remain “competitive”, the European Union must dismantle as much as it can of socialism’s achievements and institute the right to trade freely as the most fundamental of human rights.

The tinkering with voting systems and all the rest of it may be important to the small countries which tend to lose out, and the questions of whether the EU has a longer-term “president” and what we are obliged to call the foreign affairs representative should be of importance to all of us. Yet such questions also provide a convenient smokescreen for what is really going on. Some time ago the veteran UK Labour politician Roy Hattersley complained that the Labour Party had become so right wing that he had, without changing his views, found himself on its left. The institutionalisation of a market economy will mean that reformist socialism, for all its successes, is dead. Socialism, by default, and against the considered wishes of most who favour a high degree of socialisation in the economy (those who call themselves socialists and do not favour this are, of course, playing linguistic games) will return by default to its original form. The mildest socialist reforms having been made unconstitutional, all socialists, however “reformist”, “moderate” or “realistic” they may consider themselves, will become revolutionaries – and without changing their views at all.

This may well be what the late nineteenth century English translator of the Internationale had in mind when penning those words about “the last fight let us face.” Time to let Europe’s political elite hear the “thunder” of “reason in revolt”.

"Flexicurity"

Alex Doherty — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:21:19 +0000

If, like the European Commission, you were asked to make proposals for ‘modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century’ what might be your priorities?

Clearly, labour law reform provides opportunities for addressing some of our most pressing social problems. Rates of poverty remain unacceptably high; avoidable industrial accidents and occupational illnesses are also at levels which we should not be prepared to tolerate; and discrimination on grounds of gender, ethnicity, age and disability is widespread.

A forward-looking programme for labour law reform would therefore include meaures to enhance social security rights and benefits for vulnerable groups, including part-time and temporary workers, to address the problem of undeclared work, and to ensure a right to work adapted to the changed conditions of the modern economy. It would prioritise the closing of the gender pay gap, by, for example, improving recognition of the right to reconcile personal, professional and family life, enhanced protection of pregnant and breatfeeding women, and provision of flexible childcare and care for dependent relatives. It would not merely outlaw discrimination, but include active measures to advance the position of people who suffer from it, guaranteeing equal opportunities for all. It would allow access not only to employment but to training and promotion, protecting against racial and sexual harassment and any other form of bullying or unfairtreatment.

Labour law for the immensely prosperous Europe of the 21st Century should ensure that all men and women share in this wellbeing at every stage of their lives. It should for example ensure their affiliation, including during periods spent raising children or in other unpaid occupations, to a social security scheme guaranteeing health and unemployment benefits and an adequate pension.

Instead of such a programme, what the European Commission is offering in its recently-issued consultation document on the subject is what is now termed ‘flexicurity’. The word is, of course, an amalgam of ‘flexibility’ and ‘security’. Designed to suggest greater flexibility and security for the workforce, in reality it would offer greater flexibility to the employer whilst inflicting greater insecurity on employees.

This will have a particularly deleterious effect on the position of those population groups who are already at a disadvantage in the labour market. Women, young people, and people from ethnic minorities, who already find themselves working in disproportionate numbers on temporary contracts and for low wages, will be its principal victims.

Throughout Europe there is already evident a tendency for employers to blackmail workers into accepting less favourable working conditions and conditions of employment, offering them the choice between mass redundancy on the one hand or longer hours and lower wages on the other. The Commission’s proposals would legitimise and legalise such practices.

The Commission complains of “overly protective terms and conditions” in contracts, which can “deter employers from hiring during economic upturns”. It argues that “stringent employment protection legislation…tends to reduce the dynamism of the labour market”. And that “...making principal contractors responsible for the obligations of sub-contractors…encourages (them) to monitor compliance with employment legislation” which “may serve to restrain sub-contracting by foreign companies and could therefore present an obstacle to the free provision of services in the Internal Market.”

Criticising the member states for introducing ‘flexibility’ only at the ‘margins’, the Commission points out that this produces a ‘segmented’ labour market, with core workers enjoying secure employment, while the low-paid and unskilled can be hired and fired at will. This is true enough, and it has long been a concern of those who recognise that well-organised workers can look after themselves, while vulnerable groups need the protection of the state and public authorities. The solution to this was problem was to have strong labour laws. Throughout the twentieth century, this has been seen as one of the cornerstones of social democracy, forming the basis of the postwar settlement which enabled us to rebuild our country and our continent.

The Commission’s Green Paper turns this on its head. Instead of advocating a strengthening of rights for marginalised workers, it suggests that ‘segmentation’ be overcome by weakening the position of the rest of the workforce. Instead of harmonising us all upwards towards the best existing practices, the EU wants to make Europe into an employers’ paradise, where such things as the right not to be dismissed without good cause are nostalgic memories; where you will no longer have the right to decline to do overtime; where participation in a clear, collectively-bargained set of agreements designed to protect workers from exploitation (and, incidentally, employers from sweatshop competition), are regarded as ‘old-fashioned’.

Social security and labour law are, in any case, primarily national responsibilities which should remain under national control. It should be for the member states themselves to decide whether or not they want a more flexible labour law. The only possible excuse for interference from Brussels is if a member state operates so exploitative a regime that it gives that country’s industries an unfair advantage in the internal market. The role of the EU authorities should therefore be limited to establishing minimum standards of worker protection, and to guaranteeing that the rights supposedly available to European citizens do not have to left at the workplace door.

Kartika Liotard is a Member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, which is affiliated to the United European Left (GUE/NGL). Steve McGiffen is a former member of the secretariat of the United European Left and edits spectrezine.

Public Transport in Public Hands

Tim Holmes — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:21:53 +0000

On May 10th the European Parliament and Council of Transport Ministers finally agreed that local and regional public transport can, in principle, remain in the hands of public authorities.

It is seven years ago since the two bodies received a proposal from the European Commission which would have resulted in the forced privatisation of all such services. Everyone expected the proposal to be accepted on the nod, as the vast majority of Euro-MPs and almost all Ministers of Transport are wedded to neoliberal dogma.

Step forward Erik Meijer, possibly the only Euro-MP who regularly takes any public transport whatsoever (other than High Speed Trains, and airliners). Erik, from the radical left Socialist Party of the Netherlands, never flies and does not own a car. He travels from his modest home in Rotterdam to his offices in Brussels and Strasbourg by tram and train. Perhaps because his colleagues recognise that this makes him ideal for the job, he has long been coordinator of the work done by the United Left Group (GUE-NGL) of MEPs on the European Parliament’s Transport Committee.

When a proposal for a new measure arrives from the Commission, the Parliament appoints a single MEP to act as its “Rapporteur”. He or she is then responsible for researching the issues involved and convening meetings of representatives of all the groups to try to find positions which can win majority support.

These positions are distributed under a reasonably fair system. Big groups get most of these positions, but relatively small ones such as the 41-strong GUE-NGL receive the same proportion of ‘Reports’ as they have members. By allowing less important matters to go elsewhere, Meijer, as his group’s coordinator, was able to outbid other groups and win the report.

“I knew that the EU wanted to get rid of publicly owned passenger transport” Erik explains “just as they want to see the back of public ownership in postal services and energy supply. From the start I have been determined to find a way to stop these plans from being realised. But that would only be successful if we could mobilise opposition throughout Europe. This is what we managed to do, and it paid off.”

Generally, everyday public transport in towns, cities or regions is not a profitable business. So why should multinationals like the British firm Arriva, or the French Veolia/Connex/BBA want to move in on it?

The answer is that they’re after your money and mine, not in the form of honest and affordable fares, but in state subsidies. The winner of the tender would be the firm which asked for the least support from the taxpayer.

In presenting its case, the Commission did have one powerful argument. Major publicly-owned state-subsidised transport providers, such as the Parisian RER, could as things stood nevertheless compete for tenders in other parts of the world. Private corporations were complaining that this put them at a disadvantage. The French taxpayer was in effect paying for the RER to claim lower subsidies elsewhere and thus win foreign tenders.

Ironically, it was this single nugget of reasoned argument in a murky river of pro-privatisation prejudice which enabled Erik Meijer to win the day. The proposal was that all tram, bus, metro and train services in need of state subsidy would be put out to tender. Erik’s major amendment was that publicly-owned enterprises in the sector should be given a choice: either they could continue to receive state subsidies, or they could bid to run services in other parts of the EU.

Perhaps it was the sheer reasonableness of this proposed amendment, or perhaps it was the use of the buzzword ‘choice’, but from the very beginning Erik Meijer found that he could persuade MEPs from the centre-left and Green groups and even beyond that they should back him.

The Commission promised that the measure, if left intact, would mean lower fares. Meijer was told that the existing situation was in longstanding conflict with the rules laid down in the EU treaty, that the measure’s consequences had already been exhaustively studied and that the reform must be instituted as quickly as possible.

Meijer did not agree, however, and in working together with major cities, national organisations of local authorities, trade unions and consumers’ organisations and environmentalist groups he formed an entirely different picture of the situation. Meijer was able to show that where deregulation had led to an apparent reduction in costs, these had been achieved primarily by driving down wages and cutting corners on safety. Small private firms would be unable to compete in the tender process. Small-scale, localised public monopolies would be replaced by large-scale monopolies in private hands, and in a short space of time this would result in higher fares and higher subsidies for services of poorer quality. Experiments in some areas with free public transport, as well as the now popular creation of new urban tram networks, would be endangered.

In 2001 the European Parliament voted by a large majority in favour of Meijer’s amendments. Public authorities would remain free to organise their passenger transport services in a non-commercial manner, but only if the amended measure were also approved by the member states. This took until the end of 2006, but at the end of last year the bulk of Meijer’s proposals were carried by the EU Council of Transport Ministers.

Following this, however, some right-wing MEPs attempted to reverse some of Meijer’s original amendments, and he had to return to the negotiating table to try to reach an agreement.

“On the one hand I took all the reasonable proposals from the Parliament on board and tried to defend them, which won me broad support from the different political groups,” Meijer explained. “On the other I convinced the Council that they should throw out a number of amendments which would have meant more market and less freedom of choice for local and regional authorities.”

Erik Meijer is a very unusual politician. A quiet, modest man who goes about his work with little fuss, he was able to take on and beat a European Commission which cares more about the ‘right’ of multinationals to make a fast euro than it does about ordinary people’s rights to safe, efficient transport or transport workers’ rights to decent conditions.

Like a judo expert, he used his opponents’ strength to defeat them, successfully demonstrating that the market can narrow choice as well as, just perhaps, sometimes expanding it.

Steve McGiffen edits spectrezine, ‘the voice of the EU-critical left in Europe’.

EU Climate Change Failure

Alex Doherty — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:51:15 +0000

The recent high profile adoption by the European Union of a position on climate change which envisages drastic cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases over the next quarter century risks, once again, creating the impression that the unelected, unanswerable institutions in Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt are at least a potential part of the solution to the world’s ills.

They are not.

On the contrary, the EU is very much part of the problem, and must take enormous responsibility for an environmental crisis from which there may, I fear, be no comfortable means of escape.

True, in order to to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU has taken a range of measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately what it cannot do is evade the logic of the system whose existence it was established to perpetuate, a ‘free market economy’ which is in reality no such thing.

Far from being ‘free’ the market is continually rigged in favour of the most powerful concentrations of capital to the detriment not only of working people and the world’s poor, but of small enterprises, unorthodox economic formations, and any capitalist foolish enough to put any consideration before that of short-term gain.

The EU’s main measure to combat climate change, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), is based on that same rigged market, and so will achieve nothing.

Under the ETS, each member state draws up a National Allocation Plan (NAP), assigning greenhouse gas emission allowances to power stations and other plant.

Not all sectors are covered, but firms in those which are have the choice of using the permits to cover for its emissions, selling what it doesn’t need or buying additional permits.

The idea is to create a ‘market’ in polluting rights, so that companies will decide ‘rationally’ on the basis of hard economics whether to keep polluting or cut emissions.

All other things being equal, they will do what is cheapest.

Unfortunately, most states have overallocated emission permits to companies, allowing them to continue to pollute at the same or even higher levels than before and maintaining a price for emission credits too low to act as an incentive to cut emissions.

Worse still, some of the most polluting sectors, including transport, are not included in the scheme.

The Linking Directive, adopted in summer 2004, plugs the ETS into the global system established at Kyoto.

Under the so-called “flexible mechanisms” of the Kyoto Protocol, credits for emissions saved through co-operation with countries outside the EU can also be bought and sold under the ETS.

This will mean that instead of using the ETS for the purpose for which it was intended, companies will buy cheap credits from developing countries, credits based on what are often in reality environmentally damaging projects whose effects on carbon emissions are speculative and, even if positive, offset by other impacts.

The announcement in February that EU environment ministers had agreed in principle to cut greenhouse emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020 and seek a 30% cut worldwide if matched by other developed nations should be seen in this light.

To take a further example, the Renewables Directive was introduced in 2001.

Its aim is to increase the share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the EU to just over 22% by 2010.

The full implementation of this directive would make a big dent on that 20% target, representing a 6% cut against the 1990 base line.

Unfortunately, the weakness of national implementation measures means that the EU will not meet the target.

The latest announced targets are likely to meet the same fate.

Other measures are in every case undermined by what one can only conclude is a lack of political will.

The Cogeneration Directive, for example, aims to save power by encouraging the simultaneous production of electricity and heat, massively increasing efficiency.

Unfortunately, the directive’s failure to set quantified targets for each member state has effectively made it into no more than an advisory measure.

The EU’s inability to take effective action is a result of the enormous influence of corporate lobbyists at both national and European level.

But it is also a result of the fact that the EU’s founding treaty, its underlying philosophy and the ideas guiding its key decision-makers share the worldview of those lobbyists and the people they represent.

This is why no binding legislation has been implemented in the most obvious area of road transport efficiency.

Instead, we have farcical ‘voluntary agreements’.

Unsurprisingly, though these do include quantifiable targets, the industry will not meet them.
The same is true in a host of other sectors. Housing is responsible for 40% of the EU’s energy use, yet legislation applies only to buildings larger than 1000m2, around 10% of stock, and fails even to set binding minimum efficiency standards.

Even were these measures more effective, however, the EU’s broader activities would surely undermine them.

Transport policy is designed to encourage the building of more roads to facilitate the single internal market and promote growth, so that although there has been an impressive rise in fuel efficiency, this has been more than offset by the increase in road traffic.

Particularly in the new member states, where private car ownership is growing rapidly and the road sector’s share of passenger and freight transport increasing, these developments are accompanied by uncontrolled ribbon development and urban sprawl, all of which mean higher emissions.

Capitalism will never be capable of curbing its rapacious appetite for growth, or of investing in the kind of technologies which might mitigate the harmful effects of that growth.

Still less will it ever be capable of escaping its own merciless logic and adapting to a society based on cooperation in the pursuit of the satisfaction of real human needs and desires in full respect for the environment, the planet, for everything which lives.

Steve McGiffen is spectrezine’s editor and a former environmental adviser to the European Parliament’s United Left Group. This article first appeared in The Morning Star

Understanding EU Policy Making

Alex Doherty — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:28:40 +0000

Raj Chari and Sylvia Kritzinger Understanding EU Policy Making= (London: Pluto Press, 2006) £16.99)

The authors begin by noting how policies emanating from the European Union are of increasing importance to the citizens of the member states. They divide these policies into those which they describe as ‘1st order’, which include single market measures, competition policy, economic and monetary policies, and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and in which “one sees a centralized and strong EU that seeks to make its mark on the world in the context of other major players in the world economy”; and ‘2nd order’ policies which see “a decentralized EU, where national governments have maintained their sovereignty” conducting programmes and making laws based on competences which “remain weak and ill-defined”. The first group are priorities for both the EU’s own institutions and for the member states as they operate and interact at European level. In relation to the second, which includes social policy, immigration and foreign policy, “intervention by the EU is regarded with suspicion.”

Having laid out their schema, the authors explain that the intention of their book is to pose “two driving questions”. The first is whether the division is empirically sound, the second,“if so, why and how do policies become of 1st and 2nd order nature?”. Does a policy become 1st order because the division suits European capital’s aim to ensure that the EU becomes “significant, perhaps even hegemonic” as a global economic power? The 2nd order policies would then be seen as those which “are not of particular concern to capital actors.”

This hypothesis is tested by means of an examination of the historical development of a range of policies and, in each case, posing the question as to whether “one can characterize the policy as indicative of either a strong centralized EU, or a weak, decentralized one where there has been a lack of harmonization?” Who has been involved in the policy’s formulation? What factors have guided them? These questions are filtered through the lens of a range of theoretical approaches to European integration. A chapter is devoted to an outline critique of these theories, which include “institutionalism”, which proceeds from the argument “that political institutions matter in determining political behaviour”; “supranational governance”, a perspective derived from “neo-functionalism”, centres around the observation that while “nation states are forced to enter into relationships with others in order to gain economic benefits”, where supranational institutions result from this they take on a life of their own. At European level this has meant that once centralised institutions have been given power over economic affairs, this power has been extended into other policy areas. The authors, not wishing to pre-determine their eventual conclusions, refer to this simply as “spillover”, but it is more commonly called ‘empire-building’.

The theory of “intergovernmental governance” is another brand of institutionalism, but one which sees the Council of Ministers as determinant. It is in the Council that the member states’ governments are directly represented, where they cooperate, jostle, squabble and compromise; and as it is the member states which run the show, it is to the Council which we must look if we are to understand why the European Union does what it does, takes the decisions it takes and acts upon them, or fails to act upon them.

Theories of “interest intermediation” return the focus to the EU’s range of institutions, seeing each as an actor which may not be neutral but itself a player in the game. Each, for instance, “may offer greater access to policy making to some political, economic and social actors…than to others.” Having now spent twenty-one years involved in a variety of capacities with the European Parliament – and thus, indirectly but closely, with the European Commission – I can confirm that this is the case, though I suspect that the observation will fail to produce an astonished gasp from many readers.

The “pluralist perspective”, in contrast, puts forward the view “that all groups with a vested interest in a policy area will be able to gain access to the policy-making process and therefore will have an equal opportunity to influence the policy’s development.” This is the kind of “theory” which puts people off political science as a discipline. As it’s plainly untrue, there seems little point in wrestling with its complexities, which in any case derive only from its adherents’ desire to dazzle and mystify their unfortunate readers with long, often invented words, or words appropriated from other meanings. Why waste one’s time on a theory which anyone who has ever attempted in whatever role to influence a legislative process can see is preposterous? True, some variants of the theory do confess that some actors may be more equal than others, arguing, however, that all that is needed to right this is a little tweaking, rather than structural, still less social, transformation.

Back in the real world, we have what the authors call “the dominant economic class perspective”. Scholars of this persuasion differ as to whether they approve (‘elitists’) or disapprove (Marxists and ‘neo-Marxists’) of this class hegemony, but at least they are living on the same planet as the rest of us.

This difficult but, unfortunately, key chapter ends by passing judgement on these various theories, all of which are seen as having at least some value when applied to certain aspects of the problems involved in understanding how policies come to be developed and adopted.

The ‘empirical’ chapters which follow deal, respectively, with single market policy, competition policy, EMU, the CAP, social policy, the ‘third pillar’ (aka ‘freedom, security and justice’) and external policies. Of the most significant policy areas, then, only the environment is missing, a curious omission when you consider its increasing importance both at EU policy-making level and in the global consciousness.

As a source of information on, and a knowledgeable critique of, EU policies, this book is a worthwhile addition to a very small pile. Yet having said that, I find myself harbouring doubts about its overall approach.

Firstly, the authors’ hypothesis seems to me to break down in certain areas. Surely, capital has a major interest in defence policy, to take the most glaring example of this. On the other hand environmental policy was, until very recently, a relatively peripheral concern. Yet the former remains to a large degree in the hands of the member states, while the latter is increasingly negotiated at Community level. While it is certainly true that the desire of large and powerful sections of capital for “a centralized and strong EU that seeks to make its mark in the global economy” is a major factor influencing decision-making in Europe, and that the effects of this vary from sector to sector, it is far from being the only factor feeding into this process. Two which might be mentioned are, firstly, history, and, secondly, simple expediency. Historically the nation-state came to define itself as the source of internal order and external defence. These came to be seen as the very essence of sovereignty and therefore of the state itself, and they are not to be given up lightly. Only since 9/11 has pressure from the United States led the first to be called into question, while the latter remains substantially intact, NATO being, by the authors’ definition, ‘decentralized’, with formal equality between member states, even if the informal reality differs considerably from this. It is therefore unsurprising that EU member states retain the lions’ share of control of defence policy, and this would surely be the case even if France and Britain did not possess their own nuclear bombs, and if the new member states were to forget that, within the living memory of some of their inhabitants, many of them have suffered invasion and humiliation by what is now the EU’s biggest member state. As for expediency, environmental policy so clearly demands international cooperation that were the EU to cease to exist, some means of perpetuating cooperation on this policy area would surely have to be found. To put it simply, the member states have granted competence to supranational institutions for the simple reason that it would make no sense to do anything else.

Finally, while the categories employed in defining policy areas are useful, and so far as matters such as formal competence are concerned they work perfectly well, they begin to break down in the face of less institutional considerations. The recent directive on services in the internal market, for example, though ostensibly a single market measure, provides stark evidence that capital is indeed interested in social policy. If the experience of three decades of neoliberalism should teach us anything, it is that measures which claim to be interested only in smoothing trade between nations can in reality be powerful weapons in the class war. And it is the business of fighting and winning that war which most determines the political behaviour of capital.

Despite these criticisms, I would commend this book to anyone who wants to read intelligent analysis of the EU’s structures and policies, and where they come from. Its authors are heretically critical of the process of integration in its present form, which is refreshing. And they are aware that there is a world outside the EU’s institutions whose existence and aspirations must be taken into account in any analysis of how the Union works, and on whose behalf. As for that, as the authors themselves conclude, it’s all about class. As usual.

The reviewer, Steve McGiffen, is Spectre’s editor and the author of The European Union: A Critical Guide

The Latest Power Grab

Alex Doherty — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:13:48 +0000

Ever since the late 1980s with its drive to create a single internal market for the whole of the European Community, the European Commission has been involved in repeated attempts to extend its powers. These powers are strictly defined in treaties which demarcate what are known as ‘competences’ between the EU’s centralised institutions and the governments of the member states.

In successive treaties ever more competences have been transferred to Brussels. This not only means that decision-making power has been moved further from the people. It means that it has been removed from the electorates of the member states and handed to the unelected officials of the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) and the appointed judges of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

In general, opposition to the activities of these bodies should come naturally to any socialist, whatever his or her feelings about European integration may be. Over the last fifteen or so years, the direction of policy from the centre has been blatantly pro-corporate, favouring employers over workers, big firms over small, agri-business over small farmers, and the market over human beings in general. This has helped to bring about a rethink among many on the left who in the darkest days of Thatcherism had begun to see ‘Europe’ as a possible deliverance from the government’s viciously anti-working class policies. It has also meant that the dilemma of what to do should the EU ever propose anything which under normal circumstances progressives would support has rarely had to be faced.

Environmental policy has long been one area in which EU action has on occasions been positive. Most aspects of environmental policy are genuine cross-border issues where international cooperation makes sense. For this reason, even EU critics have put any doubts they may have about the legitimacy of this particular kind of international cooperation to the back of their minds, giving support to a range of measures aimed at such problems as air quality and water pollution, the reduction of harmful chemicals in the environment, and nature conservation.

EU action is not, of course, always satisfactory. The recent watering-down of the REACH plan to control chemicals in consumer goods is a case in point. In some cases it is positively wrong, as in the use of emissions trading as a means of addressing climate change. Even in such cases, however, arguments tend to be about policy, not competence. The European Commission is now taking advantage of this in order to pursue one of the most audacious power-grabs in its long history of empire-building.

Until recently, criminal law was regarded as being within the exclusive competence of the member states. A state which cannot make its own criminal law is no more than a province. The so-called ‘war on terror’ has already breached this vital area of sovereignty, allowing the US to dictate other countries’ approach not only to combating terrorism but to a whole range of matters which seem to have only the most tenuous link to that worthy goal. Now the Commission wants to abolish the sovereign right of the EU’s member states to decide what constitutes a criminal breach of environmental law and what punishments should be imposed on those guilty of such.

Increasingly, people understand the depths of the environmental crisis which we are facing and support extremely strong action against those responsible. I share these sentiments wholeheartedly. So why should I oppose giving Brussels the right to tell a member state that action must be taken against a certain individual or corporation which has broken environmental law? Isn’t this simply a way of ensuring that the ‘polluter pays’? Isn’t opposition to it simply kneejerk Europhobia? How can one support EU action on polluting emissions and then oppose the EU having the right to insist on effective punishments for the guilty? These are reasonable questions, but those with experience of the European Commission’s modus operandi will probably be able to guess the answers.

The Commission purports to believe that that it is in a better position to come up with suitable punishments than are the member states. The current division of responsibilities is clear. Laws may be made centrally, but it is up to national authorities to enforce them and to determine appropriate sanctions.

The Commission claims that this is not working, that the member states are not enforcing the law.
Much as we would all like to see the irresponsible corporate decision-makers who are responsible for most pollution dealt with severely, the problem of enforcement has in fact little to do with the severity or otherwise of punishment. When legislation is written minimum standards should be included relating to the strength and competence of inspectorates. International agreements should be drawn up addressing, through a vigorous educational effort, the shortage of relevant expertise. It is this lack which means that enforcement of good environmental law is often patchy.

The exertion of undue influence by corporate lobbyists must also take the blame, of course. Yet this undue influence is, however strong it may be in national capitals, at its most powerful in the corridors of the European Commission’s Brussels complex.

The real proof of what’s going on lies in the clear fact that if environmental laws are being flouted, the means of redress already exist. The Commission can simply take to court any member state it believes is failing to adhere to the law. Individuals who believe the law is not being followed also have the right to mount a legal challenge.

The Commission’s proposal has nothing to do with improving implementation and everything to do with extending its powers into ever more areas. The implementation of environmental law must be improved and sanctions on polluters strengthened, but this is a matter for the member states.

It’s simple: a people which no longer has the right to say what is a crime, who is a criminal and how they should be punished is a subject people.

Steve McGiffen is a former environmental adviser to the European Parliament’s United European Left political group (GUE-NGL) and edits Spectrezine. This article was adapted from his monthly column in The Morning Star

Workers' Rights Out of Date?

Alex Doherty — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:05:08 +0000

If you had to set about the task of ‘modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century’ what might be your priorities?

Personally, I’d take two approaches.

Firstly, I’d decide what are the most pressing social problems and then look at how labour law might help address them: too many people are living in poverty, for example, so I’d see how labour law might be adjusted to ensure that a greater proportion of the population could have access to adequately-paid and otherwise fulfilling employment.

The number of people who suffer from industrial diseases or the effects of industrial accidents remains unacceptably high, and surely reforming aspects of labour law could do something about that. Gender and race equality persist in the world of work, so we might look at how laws protecting people from discrimination could be made more effective.

You could, I’m sure, add to and improve on this list.

A second approach would be to look at labour law in the world’s most successful economies. As the success of an economy should self-evidently be defined primarily by its ability to deliver the means to enjoy a comfortable and secure life to the people who depend on it, northern Europe runs out a clear winner. So we might look at the rights of workers in places such as Sweden, Finland or the Netherlands.

Given that all of the above seems so obvious, why do we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that no evidence of any such thinking will be found in a consultative document, recently published by the European Commission, entitled ‘Modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century’.

Why, in fact, does the title of this Green Paper send shivers down my spine?

Here are some of the things that the European Commission considers out of keeping with the modern way of doing things:

““Overly protective terms and conditions” in contracts, which can “deter employers from hiring during economic upturns”.
““stringent employment protection legislation” which “tends to reduce the dynamism of the labour market”
“”...making principal contractors responsible for the obligations of sub-contractors” which “encourages (them) to monitor compliance with employment legislation” but which, unfortunately, “may serve to restrain sub-contracting by foreign companies and could therefore present an obstacle to the free provision of services in the Internal Market.”

Sometimes, the Commission’s logic defies reason. Criticising the member states for introducing ‘flexibility’ only at the ‘margins’, it points out that this produces a ‘segmented’ labour market, with core workers enjoying secure employment, while the low-paid and unskilled can be hired and fired at will.
This has long been a concern of those who recognise that well-organised workers can look after themselves, while vulnerable groups need the protection and solidarity of the state and public authorities. The solution to this was to have strong labour laws. This was, throughout the twentieth century, one of the cornerstones of social democracy, of progressive political action within a capitalist economy.

The Commission’s Green Paper turns this on its head. Instead of advocating a strengthening of rights for workers on the margins, it suggests (logically enough, I suppose) that ‘segmentation’ could be overcome by weakening the position of the rest of the workforce!

As Francis Wurtz, president of the United European Left political group in the European Parliament said recently, the Commission clearly believes that “the work relationship is that of an individual worker to his or her employer, which must be agreed in a contract. Labour law is a product of the archaic bureaucracy which destroys the productivity of companies in the face of their competitors…”

The assumptions behind this approach are revealed in one of the questions to which people responding to this consultative document are asked to address themselves.

“Do existing regulations, whether in the form of law and/or collective agreements, hinder or stimulate enterprises and employees seeking to avail of opportunities to increase productivity and adjust to the introduction of new technologies and changes linked to international competition?”

Almost twenty years ago, after a decade of Thatcherism, many British trade union leaders looked to then Commission President Jacques Delors to force the UK to bring the standard of its labour laws up to those of other northern European countries. It never happened, of course. Instead of harmonising us all upwards to Sweden’s level, the EU wants to make us all, Sweden, Britain and every other member state, into an employers’ paradise, where such things as the right not to be dismissed without good cause, to decline to do overtime or refuse to do work other than that for which one was hired, or to participate in a clear, collectively-bargained set of agreements designed to protect workers from exploitation (and, incidentally, employers from sweatshop competition), are regarded as ‘old-fashioned’.

The consultative process goes on until 31st March. You can read the Green Paper and respond to it at European Commission, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. Steve McGiffen edits spectrezine.

Bolkestein's Monster

Alex Doherty — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:11:20 +0000

The Bolkestein directive is back. The measure, which threatens to throw essential services in every European Union member state to the wolves of the market, has been sent back to the European Parliament for re-examination.
Last February, following an impressive mass mobilisation of trade unions across the continent, MEPs agreed to remove the directive’s worst excesses, reducing its scope by exempting social housing provision and some aspects of health care. Explicit reference to the notorious country of origin principle was removed, though critics said that the ambiguity of the remaining text would allow the European Court of Justice effectively to restore it.

Most parties in the so-called Socialist group supported this compromise, though progressive MEPs organised in the United Left Group (GUE/NGL) voted against. No matter, as GUE/NGL leader Francis Wurtz said when the reply to the parliament’s amendments arrived from the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, what these two bodies were saying, in so many words, was “you can amend whatever you like, as we won’t take a scrap of notice.”

The Council of Ministers, consisting of the employment ministers of each of the 25 member states, at first promised to respect the parliament’s amendments. When the council’s official response arrived, it had in effect restored the original proposal, so restricting the parliament’s exemptions – designed to protect services of general interest – that the text was even criticised by Austria’s right-wing employment minister. Austria’s being the current holder of the rotating EU presidency should at least have given it the power to delay the passage of the council’s revised text, but apparently the minister’s reservations were insufficient to block an agreement.
Many Members of the European Parliament are up in arms about this flouting of any semblance of democracy. Wurtz has attacked the council text for “introducing a series of alarming ambiguities, both on public services and consumer protection,” adding that it has also “given the European Commission an outrageous right of scrutiny over national legislation.” In other words, any law seen to be in violation of complete freedom of establishment of and trade in services will be declared null and void by an unelected bureaucracy now exclusively composed of fanatical neoliberals.

The Parliament will make a further attempt to water down the text, which must now go through its second reading, in the near future. Even if it succeeds, however, the results will be no better than the compromise rejected by the left in February. Parliament rules mean that only amendments carried at first reading but then rejected by the council may be presented at second reading.
Moreover, however extreme the final measure, you can be sure that most national parliaments will nod it through. And extreme it is, representing nothing less than a declaration of war on the labour rights, working conditions and social provisions won by workers in most western European countries over the last century or more.

The latest text returns to an approach which treats all services as equal, ignoring their actual importance to the public interest. Competition rules and access to national markets for foreign firms takes precedence over all other interests.

Demands that no single European market in services should be considered until a directive is in place exempting services of general interest have been ignored, despite the fact that it is now almost a decade since the European Commission first promised to introduce such a measure.
The text also hugely restricts the degree to which member states can regulate service activities within their national borders. The county of origin principle will allow a firm registered in a country with very low standards of labour protection or very lax environmental legislation to conduct activities in, for example, Britain. France or the Netherlands with no regard for national law. Provided that it complies with the law in the country in which it was registered, it would be operating entirely legally.
Even if standards in its country of registration were acceptable, inspectors from the host country would have no right to enforce them. The idea that Lithuania or Cyprus is going to send an inspector to ensure that a firm operating in Belfast or Copenhagen, Stockholm or Munich is following the rules is, of course, laughable.

Whether a single market in services is desirable at all is highly debatable. However, if companies are going to operate abroad, then they should surely follow national laws and regulations.

The adoption of minimum standards to apply throughout the EU would seem, moreover, to be an essential corollary of any attempt to encourage cross-border competition. Yet the draft directive excludes any possibility of such standards being introduced.

As is generally the case, we are going to have to rely on ourselves if we are to win this vital battle. The Directive on Services in the European community is an attack on all working people in every EU member state.

Neither the European Parliament, national parliaments nor member state governments are going to stop it. It is vital that workers across the EU participate in the mass mobilisations which, presuming the directive becomes law, will greet any attempt to implement it.

Steve McGiffen is editor of Spectrezine and author of The European Union: A Critical Guide, which is published by Pluto