Lisbon Treaty (No. 3)

It is always helpful to have an exegetist of such immense academic knowledge as my right hon. Friend and I bow to his superior knowledge. However, whether he likes it or not, I still think that the term has neo-liberal implications—irrespective of whether it started out like that. The treaty also demands the abolition of what are called"““overtly protective terms and conditions””—" a highly subjective notion, of course—in contracts that supposedly"““deter employers from hiring during economic upturns””." Despite all the spin about flexicurity—I entirely absolve my right hon. Friend of any accusation of using spin—the detailed language in some parts of the treaty suggests—unless it is balanced by a robust and effective charter of rights—a slippery slope on which it would be easy to slide back to the sort of casualisation and insecurity that we saw in previous decades in this country. That is my central point and bottom line in the debate. That is all too clearly revealed, to provide one further example, in an EU green paper promoting flexicurity, which says that contractor obligations to monitor employment law among sub-contractors"““may serve to restrain sub-contracting by foreign firms and present an obstacle to the free provision of services in the internal market””." That just about says it all. The direction of travel is unmistakable. For a final example, under article III-147 of the old constitution, which remains under the reform treaty, the EU would be given power to enforce privatisation in any area of economic activity:"““A European framework law shall establish the measures in order to achieve the liberalisation of a specific service””." We have already seen that in action with the EU services directive, which was seeking to extend the private sector into all areas of public service, but at least health care was left out on that occasion. However, a draft EU health services directive was adopted at the end of last year by the European Commission and was designed to create a market in health care. I conclude that this abundant evidence of the neo-liberal underpinning of the EU treaties is the overwhelming reason why we need a balance to secure a social Europe, not just a market Europe, and why a charter for fundamental human rights is crucial to achieve that balance.