Brussels, 05/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - After three months in the post of European Commissioner for Transport, the Slovenian liberal, Violeta Bulc, has been listening carefully to the unions. This week she met the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF), whose representatives were quick to alert her to the problem of social dumping.
The ETF's political bureau visited Commissioner Bulc on Tuesday 3 February. Railway reform and the subsequent liberalisation of domestic passenger transport were discussed, as well as the port package and the exclusion of seafarers from the EU's socially related directives. The unions obviously expressed their fears about the subject of social dumping, particularly in the road transport and aviation sectors (see EUROPE 11235 and 11244 respectively). The Commissioner informed the union members that she intended to organise a conference on this subject next June. The conference would take the form of a Social Summit organised jointly by the directorates-general in charge of transport and employment.
ETF president, Lars Lindgren, also informed the Commissioner that he was not pleased with the lack of transparency in the free trade negotiations with the US (TTIP) and insisted on the fact that his union wanted to suspend these discussions and renegotiate the EU mandate (impact of the TTIP on transport: see EUROPE 11242). (MD)