Luca Visentini, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) expressed “strong concerns” on Tuesday 6 September about a draft legislative text on the Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI), in a letter addressed to Commissioners Thierry Breton (Internal Market) and Nicolas Schmit (Jobs and Social Rights), seen by EUROPE.
The European Commission is considering repealing Regulation 2679/98 on the functioning of the single market in relation to free movement (see EUROPE 13013/4), known as the ‘strawberry regulation’, which was adopted following serious obstacles in the 1990s pertaining to agricultural products (mainly strawberries) which were transported from Spain to France.
This regulation contains the “Monti clause” in Article 2, which guarantees the right or freedom to strike. However, the union notes that in relation to respecting trade union rights, the SMEI does not seem to offer such strong safeguards as the regulation. The legislative proposal should therefore ensure that “any lawful strike action carried out by trade unions must not in any way be considered to be a crisis under the SMEI”. Trade union action cannot be a reason to trigger the instrument, says the letter.
“A strike cannot be considered as an exceptional, unexpected and sudden event for the purposes of the SMEI” they insist, and “any measure or action undertaken by Member States or economic operators under the SMEI must not be used to circumvent or undermine directly or indirectly a collective action”. For trade unions, crisis preparedness and response to crises must never be used as a means to undermine or set aside fundamental rights.
The unions are therefore calling on the European Commission to provide “clarification” in the final version of the text, which will be presented next week in the wake of the European Commission President's State of the Union address. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)