Brussels, 24/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 23 May, the S&D Group at the European Parliament urged the European Commission to revise its proposals on the so-called “Monti II” regulation proposed in March this year on fundamental social rights in the internal market. The regulation seeks to strike a new balance between the free provision of services and the right to conduct collective action, taking into account the various case-laws, such as the Viking-Line and Laval affairs. The regulation, however, soon came under fire of criticism from member states and from workers' trade unions, which bemoaned the fact that, in Article 2 of the regulation, the principle of equivalence was established between economic freedoms (free provision of services and freedom of establishment) and social rights (the right to strike).
In its press release, the S&D thus calls on the Commission to recast its proposal, “following a yellow card addressed by a third of national parliaments in the EU on the grounds that those proposals could conflict with national competences” (subsidiarity principle). The S&D Group went on to say that this is the “first time that national parliaments have successfully used this new tool of the Lisbon Treaty and it is on a core value of the European Union”, going on to point out that, from the outset, the Group had expressed serious reservation about the proposal. S&D members responsible for social policy - for example, Stephen Hughes, Alejandro Cercas, Pervenche Berès and Ole Christensen - took the view that such action by national parliaments therefore “gives the Commission a chance to do what it should have done in the first place - to make it clear that the fundamental rights of workers have primacy over economic freedom”. The S&D press release goes on to say: “That primacy for the right to organise and the right to strike was thrown into question by a series of rogue decisions by the European Court of Justice and this proposal was supposed to resolve the matter. It simply was not up to the task. Now it needs to be revised to settle the matter”. (SP/JK/transl.jl)