Rocky road ahead for McCreevy

international | eu | press release

Thursday November 25, 2004 10:25

by Brendan Young - DAPSE

dapse at eircom dot net

European trade unions challenge Internal Market Directive

Charlie McCreevy is coming under increasing pressure to drop the controversial Directive on Services in the Internal Market. The European Federation of Building and Woodworkers and the European Federation of Public Service Unions have called a demonstration in Brussels on Thursday Nov. 25, on the occasion of the meeting of the EU Competitiveness Council, in opposition to the Directive.

Democracy and Public Services in Europe (DAPSE)
Email:dapse@eircom.net

PRESS RELEASE

Wednesday, 24/11/04

Rocky road ahead for McCreevy

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is also supporting tomorrow’s demonstration, and has warned both the Council and MEPs that proposals in the controversial ‘Bolkestein’ Directive threaten both workers rights and the supply of essential services to European citizens. The Confederation believes that the proposal favours too much deregulation and fails to uphold vital social considerations.

According to Werner Buelen, Policy Secretary of the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers:

“The European construction sector is traditionally highly vulnerable to social dumping and unfair competition. In order to forestall such problems, almost all European countries have instituted protective measures. The European Commission considers these protective measures to be an "obstacle" to further liberalisation of the European Internal Market. By means of the Services Directive, the European Commission is seeking to abolish national protective measures. The Services Directive would also de facto nullify the Posting Directive, which provides that a foreign employer who posts workers to another country must observe the conditions of pay and employment of the country of employment. For the construction sector, these proposals would be an outright disaster and open the door to illegal contractors, fraudsters, etc.”

The European TUC has highlighted four areas of serious concern with the Directive:

The ‘country of origin’ principle poses a severe threat to a well-functioning internal market for services;

Labour laws must not be treated as obstacles to be eliminated;

Market forces must not take priority when it comes to services of general interest (public services);

No serious or adequate assessment of the impact of these measures has been carried out.

These concerns are echoed in a ten-point critique of the Directive by the European Federation of Public Services Unions (EPSU) – contact below.

On the threat to health services posed by Directive, the British Medical Association has warned that the proposal would pose a “serious threat” to patient safeguards and health standards if national health services were deregulated.

European trade union opposition to the ‘country of origin’ principle is also being raised by Irish citizens. Commenting on behalf of DAPSE, Brendan Young said:

“The ‘country of origin’ principle means that a privately-owned provider based in a country where regulations allow low standards of service would be able to operate according to their ‘country of origin’ standards in other EU countries. This will lead to an overall lowering of standards across the EU - a veritable race to the bottom. It is vital that the ratification and implementation of this Directive – now on Charlie McCreevy’s desk - be blocked.”

Ends.

For further comment:

Werner Buelen, European Federation of Building and Woodworkers tel. 0032 (2) 227.10.40

www.efbww.org/EN/news.php wbuelen@efbh.be

The EFBWW represents 50 trade unions, including SIPTU, and 2.3 European construction workers.

Brian Synnott, Press Officer, European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU). www.epsu.org/r/72

0032 2 250 10 89 (tel) 00 32 2 474 98 96 75 (mobile) 0032 2 250 10 99 (fax) bsynnott@epsu.org

EPSU represents 192 trade unions, including all the Irish Public Service unions, and 8 million European public service employees.

For British Medical Association see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3965759.stm

Brendan Young. DAPSE. 085 713 1903 dapse@eircom.net

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Rocky road ahead for McCreevy