A Final(?) Letter To Valery Giscard d'Estaing
Debate Between Patrick Martin & John Martin
Thwarted By A Surge Of Democracy
Bringing Europe Closer Together?
France pulps copies of EU treaty
French pressure dilutes services directive
Recent polls indicate that the European Constitution will be rejected by the French in their referendum of the 29th of May. At the time of writing (24.3.05) two opinion polls have shown a small majority against the Constitution (51% against in a survey for le Parisien and 52% against in a survey for Le Figaro). The European establishment is beginning to panic because the trend is against the Constitution. At the beginning of March only 40% were against. It seems that the more the French learn about the Constitution, the less they like it.
The results of the above opinion polls were greeted with a rather patronising editorial from The Irish Times which referred to the "identity crisis" of the French and urged that country’s political class to engage "more vigorously" in the debate.
Unfortunately for the French 'political class', France is not like Ireland. It does not suffer from the same stultifying media consensus. It has a pluralist press. As a result, France has the most political and informed electorate in Europe.
It is acutely aware of recent European developments and for the most part it doesn’t like them. The March issue of the Irish Political Review described the Bolkestein Directive. There has been hardly a word about it in our media. A largely inaccurate article was published in the Irish Times (10.3.05) which was easily rebutted by Charlie McCreevy, the EU Commissioner for the Internal Market.
But, while the debate in Ireland has been non existent, in France a recent opinion poll indicated that 68% of the French oppose the Bolkestein Directive, 28% are in favour and a mere 4% have no opinion.
The Directive seeks to create an unrestricted market for services across the European Union. The laws and wage levels that will apply will be that of the "country of origin". So, an Irish firm supplying building services can register a company in Poland. It can then bring Polish workers over and pay them Polish rates and apply Polish labour laws. Minimum wage legislation in this country will be redundant, never mind the existing Irish rates for carpenters, plumbers etc.
At present services supplied in the host country are subject to that country’s laws. The supporters of Bolkestein claim that the "country of origin" principle will not apply to labour law. But they have not been able to fool the French. In theory the Polish registered company in the above example will have to apply Irish employment laws eight days after the Polish workers arrive.
However, if a second company is registered in Poland, the workers in the first registered company can be transferred to the second company after the eight day period to ensure that Polish wages and laws will still apply. After sixteen days they can be transferred back to the first Polish-registered company and so on.
But even if the Irish owners of the Polish-registered company forget to transfer the Polish workers every eight days, the Polish workers will have to apply to a Polish judge to ensure that Irish laws apply to their employment. Polish officials will have to apply Irish laws and conduct labour inspections in Ireland. It would be difficult to imagine a more deliberately ineffective way of applying labour laws.
And the position of the consumers of the Polish-registered company's products or services does not bear thinking about. If the company falls down on the job, will the consumer have to go to law in Warsaw?
McCreevy in his Irish Times piece implied that the opponents of Bolkestein are against the rights of the poor Polish workers. But many Polish Trade Unionists do not much like Bolkestein either. They are not happy with a situation that forces Polish workers to work abroad with the disruption to family life that that will entail.
The "country of origin" principle also applies to legal services. The law applying to property transactions will therefore be the law of the legal firm that the buyer of the property uses. At present one of the obstacles to buying property in a foreign country is the different legal systems in each country. Bolkestein will eliminate this obstacle and make it easier for Irish property speculators to buy at cheap prices in Eastern Europe. The effect will be to push up prices in the poorer countries making home ownership beyond the reach of the native population.
In France, the Bolkestein Directive is known as the Frankenstein Directive because it seeks to genetically modify the European Social Model. At the time of writing European leaders have watered down the Directive (details are unclear) in response to fears of a rejection by the French of the EU Constitution.
But there are other Directives including one which emasculates legislation on the maximum working week of 48 hours. Henri Emanuelli, a French Socialist who advocates a 'No' vote, appeared on the Thierry Ardisson show (the French equivalent of RTE's Late Late Show) on 19.3.05. He listed 40 EU Directives which had a similar Free Market orientation. Bolkestein is not an isolated incidence. The proposed EU Constitution is in the same spirit. But the Constitution attempts to define the framework of European politics for the decades to come. The principle of "subsidiarity" of the Delors/Mitterand/Kohl era is dead.
Emanuelli’s conclusion is that the choice facing French voters in the Constitutional referendum is very simple. Vote 'Yes' for a "free market" Europe. Vote 'No' for a "social Europe".
The Irish Political Review does not think that the French have an "identity crisis". If they can resist the intimidation and misinformation that is likely to characterise the 'Yes' campaign, as witnessed by the Irish in the Nice Referendum, the EU Constitution will suffer a resounding defeat.