Brussels, 29/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - What is the European Commission doing to maintain and modernise public services? It is getting itself lost in White and Green Papers and communications without coming up with any legislative proposals. Based on this observation, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has come out in support for a moratorium on liberalisation and a framework directive for services of general economic interest (SGEI). It affirms, however, that the “Commission is refusing to take action”. This is why ETUC has decided to collect the signatures of citizens and workers, in collaboration with its affiliates and other partners, to encourage the Commission to take action in favour of framework legislation protecting public services. This petition was launched in November 2006, and calls on the Commission to produce a proposal for framework legislation that maintains quality and accessibility of public services for all. Until now, 78,366 signatures are on the petition. Three political groups at the EP, the PES, the Greens/EFA and the GUE/NGL group have mobilised in support of the petition.
Major European political figures have also given the initiative their support. Jacques Delors, the founding president of “Notre Europe” and a former president of the European Commission, declared to the Committee of the Regions on 28 February 2007: “Personally, I would never have agreed to adoption of the Services Directive, even amended, without a parallel framework law on SGEI. Society lives from both public and private services. There is no reason to give precedence to one over the other." The president of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Michel Delebarre, stated on 5 December 2006 that he was delighted that ETUC was providing a new boost to the framework directive on public services for two reasons: ETUC is echoing the position of the local and regional representatives who have also adopted their opinion on the Commission's White Paper on public services, and also because “ETUC chooses to act on the ground and through participatory democracy”. Pierre Jonckheer, the vice president of the Greens/EFA indicated that: “The Greens hope to see the ETUC petition receive wide support from Europe's workers and citizens”. The president of the Socialist group at the EP, Martin Schulz, asserted: “We must convince the Commission, as ETUC asks in its petition, to put on the drawing board Community legislation that guarantees the legality of public services.”
The petition also gained the support of NGOs, such as the Platform of European Social NGOs and the European Anti Poverty Network (EAPN), whose director; Fintan Farrell, pointed out: “This campaign is vital for defending access for all to affordable public services, because services are an essential resource in combating poverty and social exclusion.” Info: (http://www.etuc.org ). (gb)