Baulking At The Bolkestein Directive

Editorial From Irish Political Review, March 2005

How many have heard of this Directive? It is given extensive coverage in the European press but here it would probably elicit…'The Bolkestein what?'—and might be thought to be something to do with the Balkans or Balkanisation.

Those of us who are in the pathetic condition of having to rely on the Irish and British media for information on the world may not have heard of this Directive. Journalists in the UK and Ireland have minds that are so addled by Free Market ideology that they are incapable of seeing, never mind reporting, on anything that affects the lives of ordinary people.

The Bolkestein Directive is a directive liberalising services, including employment services, throughout the EU. The way it works is that a factory owner in Ireland, for example, can decide to use, for example, a Latvian employment agency to supply him with labour services (factory workers).

The Directive will make it almost impossible to apply Irish employment laws, pay, and conditions to workers registered with the Latvian company. The aim of the Directive is to reduce administrative "obstacles" (such as employment inspections) to services across the European Union. It also enshrines the principle that the laws applying to the service will be determined by the "country of origin" of the company supplying the services. There is a derogation of this principle for employees working in a different country to the country of origin of their company. However, this looks like a 'fig leaf'.

The inspectors in the above example can be from the country of origin (i.e. Latvia). Will Latvian inspectors apply Irish law rigorously?

But even this 'fig leaf' may be discarded if the EU Constitution becomes law. This Constitution enshrines Free Market principles and is likely to declare any 'obstacle' to the free market unconstitutional.

This means that a company in Ireland can use an agency in a country with inferior wages and conditions to import workers. These workers will be subject not to Irish law, but to the law of the country in which the Agency is based. Under the new dispensation it would be advantageous to an Irish company to use imported workers, who will not have Irish entitlements in terms of wages and conditions. Indeed, once the idea catches on, companies may be forced to import such workers in order to remain 'competitive'.

Understandably, many Trade Unionists in Europe and others are going berserk over this. They see this, rightly, as a way of undermining social protection and leading to higher unemployment in 'old' Europe. The UK, of course, is in favour, therefore no doubt so are the Irish. Chirac is against, but most believe that he will change his mind after the French referendum on the EU Constitution. There is little said about it in Ireland and this is undoubtedly because of the looming referendum on the EU Constitution.

This Directive is an attempt to change Europe in the Anglo-American direction—one that at present seems quite acceptable to the "new Europe"—the new accession countries. At the moment this block is pro-USA in economics and foreign policy. The enlargement of the EU is threatening to undermine the way of life of "old Europe". Perhaps politicians in this country don't care. We wonder if the continental European political outlook of Fianna Fail under Haughey is a thing of the past.

This magazine was "pro Europe" up to and including the Maastricht treaty. But we cannot close our eyes to recent developments. The original Social/Christian democratic vision has been subverted by Anglo American Free Market values. We say vote "NO" to the EU referendum and "YES" to the European social model and an independent EU Foreign policy.

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Baulking At The Bolkestein Directive

Editorial From Irish Political Review, March 2005