Brussels, 10/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - At a public hearing held at the European Parliament on 8 November, the Greens/EFA group launched a European petition to radically change the services directive and preserve the European Social Model. The first signatures of the petition are Belgian Green Pierre Jonckheer, German Green Heide Ruhle and German Social Democrat Evelyne Gebhardt, EP rapporteur on this issue. The signatories say 'unless it is completely reshaped on a series of fundamental points, the services directive will jeopardise the fulfilment of the missions of general interest and the regulatory role of public authorities at national, regional and local levels. The application as a general rule of the country of origin principle will also lead to dumping in social, fiscal, consumer protection and environmental terms.' The European Parliament's Internal Market Committee will vote on the services directive on 22 November, and the European Parliament will give its view in first reading in January next year.
The petition calls on the European Parliament to support amendments to 1) 'reduce comprehensively the scope of the directive, especially by excluding services of general interest and services of general economic interest, in particular healthcare and social services, audiovisual services, postal services, gas, electricity, water and environmental services as well as the temporary work agencies'; 2) 'recognise that the services directive is only complementary to the existing and upcoming sectoral European legislation in services as well as to the provisions of the Rome Convention on the laws applicable to contractual obligations and to those of the draft 'Rome II' Regulation on the laws applicable to non-contractual obligations; these pieces of legislation should prevail over the services directive'; 3) 'recognise that the services directive should not affect in any way the applicability of the host country's employment laws, including collective agreements, nor the application of the posting of workers directive' (1996/71/EC, Ed.); 4) 'allow Member States to keep the requirements imposed on services providers for overriding reasons of public interest, in conformity with the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice'; 5) 'provide an alternative to the country of origin principle, which in any case should not apply in any field where sufficient harmonisation has not been reached'; 6) and 'launch an ambitious harmonisation process concerning the rules related to the authorisation schemes and procedures, the requirements on services providers, the behaviour of the provider, the quality or content of the service, the advertisements, the contracts and the providers' liability'.