Brussels, 19/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - To mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has published a Declaration calling on the EU to 'commit itself to strengthening the European social model if it is to secure the support of European citizens'. At the ETUC executive meeting in Rome on 20-21 March, ETUC will present its own Declaration.
In its Declaration, ETUC notes that 'the EU needs an ambitious programme for a sustainable answer to the rise in precarious work and to unemployment'; insists on the 'need for more, and above all better, jobs'; and calls 'on the EU to find a way out of the existing institutional deadlock on the Constitution'. ETUC General Secretary John Monks points out that the Constitution 'contains many of the elements needed for developing social Europe - in particular the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which must remain in the Constitutional Treaty…. The ETUC has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the lack of a social dimension in the European internal market: the failure to scrap the opt-out from the Working Time Directive, and the original 'Bolkestein' Directive have been the worst examples. The EU must now urgently adopt the draft directive guaranteeing fair treatment for temporary agency staff, and the European Commission should present proposals on the protection of new forms of atypical work… Recent European debates have shown the importance of a common energy strategy, to safeguard jobs and supply. At the same time, climate change must be a priority for the decades to come, not only from the environmental point of view but also because of new employment and social cohesion opportunities.' ETUC concludes that '50 years after the signature of the Treaty of Rome, it is more important than ever to recognise that the social dimension of Europe represents an essential human investment and that social policy is just as important as economic policy.' The full declaration can be found at: http://www.etuc.org (gb)