International

Last week I was co-organiser of three meetings at the European Parliament. The themes were extremely diverse: freedom of religion and ideology, the division of responsibility for asylum seekers amongst the EU member states, and the liberalisation of the postal market. A busy week, and at a time when the local elections and Agnes Kant's resignation as SP leader and replacement by Emile Roemer of course took all the attention. But in each of these meetings there were many other people involved, so despite the inconvenient timing we couldn't really cancel any of them. The meeting with postal workers from all over Europe led in particular to important follow-up actions and although our thoughts were often in The Hague and the Netherlands, I'm glad we went through with it.

This meeting, which took place on 4th March, was extremely successful. It showed that liberalisation of the postal market has had the same consequences in all member states: declining service, and competition around working conditions instead of quality. Postal workers are losing their permanent contracts. Employment bureaux are replacing them, and new entrants to the market offer no more than a piece rate wage. It's just distressing to see how what was once a decent postal service with motivated employees has been helped into its grave by liberalisation.

As the European Parliament SP group, we are going to do all we can to help the postal workers, including by attending the major demonstration in Brussels on 14th April. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome, and you can contact us (also in English) on eurofractie@sp.nl. The aim is, by a mixture of protest actions and the collecting of a million signatures (which would qualify us to present a 'Citizens' Initiative' under the rules laid out in the Lisbon Treaty), to have a halt called to liberalisation. As for the Netherlands, where liberalisation has already been fully introduced, we will be demanding that the government ensures that working conditions are drastically improved and quality stipulations made more stringent. Together with the 'Save the Postal Worker' Committee we are going to show Brussels once and for all that neoliberalism has had its day and that a human, social Europe must now be put at the top of the agenda.