International

Foto: DonkeyHotey

Discussions with Greece over the so-called ‘agreement’ have only just been completed and France’s President Hollande is putting into words what we in reality already knew about Brussels’ true plans: it’s now time to follow through and set up a real European government which can strengthen the euro. As if after last weekend the European public was eagerly awaiting yet more antisocial policies from Brussels. The SP has a better idea: firstly, subject all EU legislation and all agreements pertaining to the euro to a test to determine their social character. If Hollande is really a social democrat and a supporter of a social Europe, then he must surely agree with us that any law which doesn’t get through a social test must be withdrawn as quickly as possible. A bit less Brussels will accord much better with the people’s will than will still more neoliberal plans.

It was already there in our election manifesto, but now it’s more current than ever: Brussels laws and agreements must be tested against the Council of Europe’s European Social Charter. To this end, the EU should become a party to the Charter, but even without it having formally done so, there is nothing to stop the test being used as a basis for reports on a measure’s effects, which Dutch European Commissioner Frans Timmermans wants to expand in the framework of his ‘better regulation’ project.

If you test the agreement with Greece against the rights laid down by the Council of Europe, you’ll see, for example, that it is in conflict with workers’ freedom of association to prevent the Greek government from recognising binding nationwide agreements on wages and conditions. It is also in conflict with the right to an adequate standard of living to evict people from their homes or to reduce pensions to the extent that retired people are forced into deep poverty. And it is in conflict with the right to health care to deny treatment to people who lack medical insurance.

I recently made concrete proposals in this direction to Timmermans’ cabinet. I’m still waiting for their reaction, but their first response was positive. Nevertheless, I don’t see the European Commission any time soon – via Timmermans or its president, Jean-Claude Juncker – reminding the leaders of member state governments of the existence of social rights. The EU institutions are far too riveted to the corporate lobby for that. But just as the Dutch government is obliged to establish a regulation providing food and basic accommodation to rejected asylum seekers until they can return to their own countries, because the oversight committee responsible for the European Social Charter has stated that this is an essential human right, so the EU institutions would have to behave in a less antisocial fashion were they subject to similar criticism. The oversight committee has already stated that earlier measures imposed on Greece by the Troika were in conflict with certain social rights. In my view, the committee should get to work again straight away, because a more antisocial agreement than that which the member state government leaders inflicted on Greece last weekend is in actual fact hard to imagine.