Brussels, 11/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - In a letter sent by email on Tuesday 11 January to Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) General Secretary John Monks slams the role of Commission officials in the implementation of EU-IMF rescue plans. He calls for an urgent meeting to clarify the situation and warns that the ETUC will not support proposals on economic governance or any Treaty amendment that these proposals may require. Copies of Monks' letter were sent to Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Commissioner László Andor, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers) and Director General of BusinessEurope Philippe De Buck.
Here is Monks' letter in full:
“Dear Commissioner,
I am receiving reports from trade unions in Greece and Ireland about the role of your officials in implementing the EU/IMF rescue packages.
The specific charge is that the Commission officials are ignoring social dialogue and collective bargaining processes and directly intervening in the labour markets of these countries. Diktats are being issued which are designed to lower living standards. Thus proposals are coming from the Commission which are designed to cut minimum wages and reduce wage “rigidities”, cut pension entitlements, make labour markets more flexible, and in Ireland's case provide for wages to reflect “market conditions” (The words in quotation marks are quotes from correspondence from Mr Szekely of DG Economic and Financial Affairs).
I should not have to remind you that this policy of detailed interference in labour markets tramples all over pious Commission statements about the autonomy of the social partners, the importance of social dialogue and the specific exclusion in the EU treaties of a European competence on pay.
Indeed, it is an attack on Social Europe and is in marked contrast to the relaxed, non-interfering view on rapidly increasing levels of top pay, including bank bonuses. It is now clear that this attack is a prime case of Commission-promoted downward pressure on Europe's social conditions. The proposals on economic governance are likely to generalise these pressures in the eurozone and beyond, and not just apply to countries in difficulties on the world's bond markets.
In these circumstances, I request an emergency meeting with you to clarify matters and to warn that the ETUC will find it impossible to support action by the EU along these lines, or proposals on economic governance, and any new treaty which contains them, which resemble in some aspects the reparation (punishment) provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, and reduce member states to quasi colonial status.
I look forward to an immediate response to my request.” (G.B./transl.rt)