Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-423"
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"en.20080422.53.2-423"2
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".
Commissioner, first of all, I would like to note for the record that my colleagues from the Conference of Presidents, who decided on a late-night debate against my wishes, are all absent this evening. Were it not for this being a late-night debate, I would be pleased to have finally initiated a discussion of this serious matter, which is the recognition by the Court of Justice of wage dumping, a matter that you just spent 20 seconds on, Commissioner, in a remarkably offhand manner.
Therefore, I will briefly outline the three stages of this new dimension of European law. 11 December 2007: the Court quashed a trade union action claiming that the Finnish shipping company Viking Line should not be allowed to register its ferry in Estonia to reduce workers’ wages. 18 December 2007: the Court again found against the unions, this time in Vaxholm, Sweden, for blockading a building against a Latvian company which was refusing to observe the collective agreement applicable to the building sector. 3 April 2008: the Court found Lower Saxony in Germany guilty of imposing a minimum salary on any construction company awarded a procurement contract. The Court then found in favour of a Polish subcontractor of a German company, which was paying its workers less than half the prescribed minimum wage. This was the Rüffert ruling.
In all three cases, the fundamental reason invoked by the Court to justify its decision to encourage wage dumping was that Community law prohibits any measure – take note – likely to ‘make less attractive’ the conditions of a company from another Member State because this is – and I quote – a ‘restriction on the freedom to provide services’ or the freedom of establishment, which are among the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty. This is quite simply unacceptable. Where is the social aspect of this liberal reasoning?
Effectively, any social progress in a country will make a market less attractive – to use the Court’s expression – for competing companies. I should add that, in all three cases, the famous Posting of Workers Directive has not offered the slightest protection to the workers concerned. Incidentally, the Court explained that, and I quote, the ‘directive seeks in particular to bring about the freedom to provide services’. It did not mention the protection of workers.
Finally, in all three cases, the Court reached its decision in the light of specific articles of the Treaty and not just the directive. These were Article 43, in the first case, and Article 49, in the two others, both being reproduced word for word in the draft Treaty of Lisbon currently in the process of ratification.
My conclusion is therefore clear. Amending a directive to solve the problem posed by these rulings is not sufficient. Anyone who wants to re-establish the primacy of social rights over free trade must insist on a revision of the treaties, and specifically the articles relied on by the Court to justify its recent decisions. This is difficult, but I think that it is necessary, because otherwise we can expect a real crisis over the legitimacy of the current European economic and social model."@en1
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