European Union (Croatian Access and Irish Protocol) Bill

Debate between Lord Monks and Lord Moynihan

Thursday 10th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, before proceeding, I would like to place on record the respect of the whole Committee, I am sure, for, Zlatko Mateša, Prime Minister of Croatia between 1995 and 2000. I was with him in Andorra only a couple of months ago when he suffered a very severe heart attack. I am glad to say that he is on the mend.

The reason why I mention him is because as Prime Minister in 1995, he provided the leadership, the inspiration and the commitment to the European project through signing the first agreement between the European Union and Croatia. As Prime Minister, he also established the office for European integration in his country and appointed a Deputy Prime Minister, Ljerka Mintas-Hodak, as Minister for European integration.

Zlatko Mateša is a great European who has been a good friend of this country, not least through matters Olympic. He has led the Croatian national Olympic committee for many years. I am sure the whole Committee will wish him well and hope that he makes a speedy and full recovery, recognising the remarkable and important contribution that he has made. His work and the work of his successors have been good news for British relations with Croatia and good news for Croatia. This is an important year for Croatia, which will go down in its history. We will all celebrate and support that country on its road to full integration within the European Union.

[Lord Monks]

My Lords, is it in order for me to say something about the Irish protocol? I apologise for not having given notice that I intended to do so.

There is a bit missing from the Irish protocol, for which the UK bears some responsibility. The story starts with the rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters, which prompted Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy to propose a social clause to be incorporated into European treaties to reflect the fact that the single market is a vehicle for social progress and that economic freedoms and competition in the market should not have priority over fundamental social rights and not be used to evade or circumvent national laws and practices.

The idea was dropped as the constitutional treaty was minimised; certain things were concentrated on—some things were withdrawn, not added, to the process. Then came along two legal cases turning on the relationship of the free movement principles with national employment law systems. I refer to the Laval case and the Viking case. In both cases, the European Court of Justice ruled that the free movement principles would prevail.

There has been a series of other cases, some of which noble Lords will probably be familiar with because they are closer to home. One involved British and Irish Ferries where the predominantly Irish workforce was replaced by an eastern European workforce. This caused a lot of consternation in Ireland at about the time that the Irish voters rejected the EU constitutional treaty. This protocol is designed to permit the Irish Government to put the issue again to the Irish people, which they have done. But at that time the initial rejection was put down in a major way to the Irish Ferries case, employment issues and workers’ rights.

There are other cases. The British Airline Pilots Association—I declare an interest as the unremunerated president—in a dispute with British Airways, which was establishing subsidiaries in Paris and Brussels, was seeking clarification on whether the British collective agreement, which covers Hong Kong, Australia and other places, would also cover Paris and Brussels.

There was also a dispute at Immingham in 2009 in a petrochemical plant that attracted a lot of attention under the heading of “British jobs for British workers”, a phrase that the previous Prime Minister had used. In each case, employers were seeking to take advantage of the ECJ rulings in the Laval and Viking cases. Let me make it clear that unions are not objecting to the employment of foreign labour—absolutely not. We are trying to protect collective agreements and to be able to enforce those agreements in the country where the dispute arises. We are looking to protect the collective agreement to ensure equality between migrants and indigenous workers, particularly where there is a loophole in the posting of workers directive where a migrant employer brings in his or her own workforce.

This is when the idea of a social protocol re-emerged to be attached to the Irish protocol. It was based on a clause on the free movement of goods originally drafted by Mario Monti when he was European Commissioner. He said then that in relation to the movement of goods, the single market would not interfere with fundamental rights. We have been seeking to get that phraseology shoved into the provisions on the free movement of services.

We have the support of the Taoiseach, the Irish Government and most Governments. It all went through the diplomatic channels and COREPER in Brussels, but it was blocked at the eleventh hour by the UK Government, who were worried about red lines in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and feared that it would strengthen calls for a referendum in the UK on Britain’s EU membership.

Interestingly, for those who think that powers should be repatriated, if we had been then in the Norway position, this particular measure could never have been blocked; the rest would have agreed it. The British influence worked against my interests in that case, but it showed Britain’s influence in the EU through participation.

The response of the European authorities was to establish another exercise, also under Mario Monti, who proposed a regulation rather similar to the one he had proposed 10 years earlier in the free movement of goods legislation. The Commission drafted a regulation based on his report but, interestingly and importantly, said that they could not go further than the ECJ decisions because it was important simply to recognise that free movement is a European competence and labour law is a national competence. They were going to respect that as no doubt the British Government wished.

That has produced a lot of disillusion. I am certainly not holding my breath for any prospect of change, but the campaign for a change goes on. As Brendan Barber, my successor at the TUC, has said, we managed to get Monti 1, we did not manage to get Monti 2, but now we would really like the full Monti. The full Monti is a social protocol which we came close to achieving in the Irish protocol that is before us today.

I emphasise that the campaign for the trade union principle of when in Rome, do as the Romans do—advice given many centuries ago to St Augustine—is very important.

I will not go into the broader implications of social Europe. I am presuming a little on the Committee’s time at the moment, and I am grateful for its patience. However, it is important to recognise that social Europe is a crucial part of Europe’s future. That concept made Europe popular, certainly on the left of British politics. Ever since, it has been chopped and cut back, and this is an example. Funnily enough, the number of supporters decreases. If we pro-Europeans are going to fight for the European Union in future, do not be careless with the concept of a social Europe. Do not be careless with the rights that have been established, or how social Europe can be used to move us in the direction of the more successful European countries such as the Nordics, Germany, the Netherlands and the eastern side of our North Sea.

I thank the Committee for its attention and for this opportunity.