Brussels, 05/11/2009
This advance is an encouragement in our continuing campaign to ensure a proper interpretation of the Treaty’s internal market provisions and against the unbalanced rulings of the European Court of Justice in the Laval, Viking, Rüffert and Luxemburg cases.
The new Treaty provisions must now also be applied to strengthen Europe’s social dimension in the new framework of a social market economy, which replaces the open economy of the Nice Treaty. We insist that this new perspective be translated into concrete actions to deal with the crisis and mounting unemployment. The ETUC in particular will be campaigning for robust action to deal with youth unemployment that is reaching catastrophic levels in many countries, and in defence of our public services that must not pay the price of the financiers’ mistakes.
The ETUC will step up its campaign to ensure the full application of fundamental rights. John Monks, ETUC General Secretary, declared: “Now that the ratification process is finally out of the way, we have to act and open new doors for social rights. The ETUC condemns once more the UK, Polish and Czech reservations to the Charter and will continue to work to ensure that all European workers are treated fairly and equally.”