Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-19-Speech-2-162"
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"en.20080219.28.2-162"2
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"Mr President, Prime Minister, Madam Minister, if there is an area where Sweden’s experience is of interest to us when it comes to European policy, I think it is one which you unfortunately chose to overlook in your address, that is, the social field, and more specifically the lessons to be learnt from the Laval-Vaxholm case.
Let me just run through the facts. The Swedish trade unions took industrial action to try to force a Latvian company to apply Swedish labour law in Sweden. What else would you expect, you might think – unless you are a supporter of the so-called country of origin principle, otherwise known as social dumping. However, the Latvian company relied on European law as justification for opposing the trade unions’ demands. The dispute was then brought before the courts, and was referred to the highest court in European law, the European Court of Justice, which, as we know, interprets the Treaties and establishes case-law.
On 18 December last year the Court ruled in favour of the company and against the unions. The Court’s judgment states, and I quote, ‘In the case in the main proceedings, it must be pointed out that the right of trade unions […] to take collective action […] is liable to make it less attractive, or more difficult, for such undertakings to carry out construction work in Sweden, and therefore constitutes a restriction on the freedom to provide services’. In future, in such cases, the trade unions in Sweden and elsewhere must restrict their demands to, and I quote again, the ‘minimum protection’ allowed under Community law, so as not to infringe Article 49 of the Treaty, which guarantees freedom to provide services.
This is clearly not acceptable, and it is why my Group is urgently calling for the European Parliament to debate this issue and its huge ramifications: what should be the political follow-up to this judgment? For the time being, however, we would be interested to hear your views on this case, Prime Minister."@en1
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