Brussels, 14/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - "Charlie McCreevy is an unpredictable person whose arrogant opinions have led to anti-European feelings in Europe", said the president of the Socialist group of the EP, Martin Schulz, on 12 October, at the opening of the plenary session in Brussels, with reference to criticism levelled by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market at Swedish collective agreements, during a visit to Stockholm in early October. He has therefore asked for not only Commissioner McCreevy, but also President Barroso, to come and explain these comments to the plenary. The co-president of the Greens/EFA group, ALE Daniel Cohn-Bendit, said that he was in complete agreement, whilst the president of the EPP-ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering, could agree to the request for clarification from Charlie McCreevy, but not from the president of the Commission. Mr McCreevy ought to explain himself, as he is a " repeat offender", and it is not the first time that he has said such things, said Francis Wurtz, the president of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group. But Brian Crowley, president of the Union for the Europe of Nations group, leapt to the defence of his compatriot McCreevy, saying: "this is a storm in a teacup. Look at what he has achieved as Irish Minister of Finance in terms of health care, pensions, and minimum wage...". Finally, the majority of MEPs rejected the request, and the debate did not take place.
The case between the Latvian company "Laval un partneri" and the Swedish union "Byggnads" broke out last spring, when the Latvian company refused to apply the Swedish collective agreements to salaries for its Latvian workers who had been seconded to work at a building site in Vaxholm. The Swedish union then stopped work from going ahead and the company had to withdraw. This case is now being looked at by the Court of Justice of the EU. On his visit to Sweden, Charlie McCreevy indicated that the Commission would support "Laval un partneri" because, in his view, European rules in terms of the free movement of workers have not been observed in this case. Thomas Ostros, the Swedish Minister for Industry, reacted strongly to this: "when (Mr McCreevy) attacks one of the social models which works the best, this is a very serious thing. This will send out a very clear signal to all unions that the "services" directive is a threat to the employment market".
The European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC) reacted very quickly to the matter in hand. In a press release, ETUC notes that "the most elementary tools of genuine social dialogue, collective negotiations and union action, have now been called into question". It calls upon José Manuel Barroso to "explain the criticism" which Mr McCreevy "is believed to have made against collective negotiations in Sweden". Furthermore, the main British unions (Unison, Amicus, the TGWU and GMB) are to launch a campaign against the proposed "services" provision, the Financial Times of 5 October reports. They feel that the Commission's proposal threatens "workers' rights", the "public services", "the minimum wage in the United Kingdom" and "all forms of collective agreements".
At a meeting with the press on 12 October, the EP rapporteur on the "services" directive, the German Social Democrat Evelyne Gebhardt, said that she "sometimes had the impression that the Commission was playing a funny kind of game" on this dossier. Otherwise, Charlie McCreevy would not have made such statements on his visit to Sweden, she said, noting that the Commission "has, by a circuitous route, made its position quite clear". Speaking to EUROPE, British Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour, "shadow" rapporteur for the EPP-ED group said simply that the matter relates to a "competitive market", and he played down the importance of the case, as the Latvian company apparently signed the Swedish collective agreement, but applied "very low salary levels". The Belgian Socialist Anne Van Lancker, rapporteur for the committee on employment and social affairs, joked that the "Commission is not too familiar with European legislation on the seconded workers!". She noted that "the Swedish", who are usually in favour of the free movement of persons, "are now worried by the Commission's position".
These events coincide with the postponement of the vote on the "services" directive by the committee on the internal market of the EP (see EUROPE 9042). In spite of this postponement, a compromise seems to be building between the political groups completely to exclude employment law, social law and collective agreements from the scope of the proposed legislation. The scope of the directive and the principle of country of origin in terms of the cross-border provision of services is still one of the main stumbling blocks to agreement on this proposal. The vote by the Parliamentary committee will take place on 21 and 22 November ahead of a first reading in plenary in January 2006.