Vote to be taken this week
The European Parliament begins the plenary debate on the so-called Bolkestein directive on Tuesday as protesters across the EU demonstrate against the plan to liberalise trade in services. The vote on the directive will be taken on Thursday and is likely to be passed with so many exclusions that it is next to meaningless.
Cypriot trade unions have called on their members to stage a half-hour sit-down strike, from 1130 to 1200 local time on Tuesday.
Supporters hope that the services directive will reduce a long list of bureaucratic obstacles to setting up a service business in another country, reduce unemployment and help close the productivity gap with the United States.
However, opponents believe that it will lead to “social dumping”, arguing that workers from EU countries with lower thresholds for standards will both knock out the local competition and reduce overall social standards.
Cypriot unions in a joint statement said they opposed the directive because it” creates competition among workers”.
Long list of exclusions
The services directive has already undergone hundreds of amendments to try and address concerns.
After two years of negotiations, the two main political groups in the European Parliament reached a compromise proposal last Wednesday that will exclude a whole range of both public and private sector services.
These include audiovisual, financial services, electronic services, communications, transport (with one or two exceptions), gambling, the services of notaries, and a whole range of public services such as public administration, public education, healthcare, social services and social security schemes.
Another long list of services are allowed to be excluded from the country of origin principle, including water, post, electricity and gas supplies.
Member states will also be able to use the excuse of public safety, public health etc to slap other restrictions in certain cases.
They will also be able to apply their own employment protection legislation.
What will the directive achieve?
This begs the question of what the directive will actually achieve.
Perhaps the most important will be that the principle of freedom to provide services has been restated, member states will have to abolish a range of pre-approval procedures (or apply them to national companies too) and will have to recognise qualifications from other countries under a single system.
More generally, the European Commission is expected to keep a beady eye on countries that fail to apply even the watered down directive effectively.
Fiona Mullen
