Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4)

It is useful to remind ourselves of why we are discussing a European treaty plain and simple, and not a treaty on the European constitution. The reason is that the people of France and the Netherlands said no. One of the main things that they said no to was a vision of Europe in which public services were privatised and the social gains of the past 50 years were sacrificed in order to secure the economic gains from the single market, which we have heard so much about in this debate. That is not the realm of a Eurosceptic fantasist. After all, the Secretary of State said that removing barriers to competition was the fundamental task of the European Union. As for the Commission, it began with the network industries—the utilities in energy and telecommunications—but it has already moved on. Only last week, the third postal services directive was agreed, which will almost certainly mean the end of a publicly owned postal service in small European states such as Luxembourg, and could spell the end of the Post Office in this country. In the neo-liberal newspeak of the European Commission, privatisation is known as liberalisation, which sounds much more benevolent, and public services—far too value-laden a term—are known as services of general economic interest. I do not think that many people would rush to the barricades to defend SGEIs, as the technocrats call them. People did take to the streets, however, against the Commission's directive on opening public services to competition—the controversial Bolkestein directive—which was part of the reason why the constitution was sunk. In some ways, the treaty represents progress. There is recognition of public opposition to the further extension of the single market into the public realm. For the first time in the history of the EU, a specific protocol is devoted to services of general interest. My core contention, however—and here I very much agree with the contribution of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson)—is that the treaty's provisions are, unfortunately, insufficient to provide us with the necessary legal safeguards against further incursions by the Commission and extension of the single market model into the realm of publicly run, managed and financed services. The key problem with the protocol is that it does not define the distinction between services of non-economic general interest and services of general economic interest. I will not detain the House on that matter, but that is part of the problem leading to legal uncertainty. What is the legal position of public services as a result of the treaty? All the evidence is that the Commission takes an expansive line on the definition of the role of competition policy with regard to public services. Only last month, Jörgen Holmquist, the Commission's director general for the internal market and services, said at a conference that in his view, everything apart from the police, the justice system and social security could be marketised. He saw many advantages in promoting that through the Commission's policies. As the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said, the best example is the Kyprianou directive on health care, which sought to introduce a form of health tourism. Superficially, it might seem to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) that that has some advantages for individuals in the short term. But we should think of the disadvantages. How can one plan a publicly run, publicly owned health system, and manage resources and work force requirements, if the level of operations that will need to be financed—and the financial cost incurred by poorer countries' health systems in making reimbursement for operations in higher-cost countries—is unclear? The Commission has dropped the Kyprianou directive, which was supposed to be published on 19 December. The speculation in the European Parliament is that the Commission wanted to avoid the publication of a controversial directive while member states were ratifying the treaty. This is what one socialist MEP—who led the opposition to the Bolkestein directive—had to say about the Commission:"““They're afraid of the reactions and of the consequences as long as the new reform treaty remains to be ratified by all member states…This is typical of this Europe: keep everyone ""sweet until the ink is dry on all of the signatures and then get on with far-reaching measures which have long been planned.””" That view has been echoed by the president of the Party of European Socialists, of which the Labour party is a member. The directive has been pulled by the Commission. It may be published after ratification, or even after the European parliamentary elections in 2009, because the Commission is worried about the public reaction. That worry about the extension of the single market model is not confined to health care. It is happening in other areas as well. In July 2005, the Commission wrote to the Dutch Government informing them—a directly elected Government—that their system of social housing was not compatible with the single market, in order to compel housing associations to sell their empty properties. As a result, the highly successful Dutch housing association model, which mixes social housing with private rented accommodation, is unlikely to survive. Now the European Property Federation has complained to the Commission about municipal housing in Sweden, and it is only a matter of time before the same complaints are made here. As it stands, the treaty does not provide sufficient legal certainty about the special position of public services. Given past experience, it can therefore be expected that the Commission and the Court will continue to interpret the treaty in a manner that is slanted towards the opening up of more and more public services to competition.