This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Jacques Delors speech to TUC Congress in which he outlined the basis of "Social Europe" in which solidarity and co-operation existed alongside economic competition and enterpreneurship. The British labour movement, having endured nearly ten years of Thatcherism, embraced the possibility of a political arena where they could fight for workers' rights.
The EU has, largely speaking, been a positive force for workers, enshrining in its work the trade union values of social inclusion and solidarity, welfare states and public services, and worker participation and collective bargaining. Through various decisions in particular those applying the Social Chapter introduced as part of the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has provided and safeguarded important rights including maternity pay and parental leave, paid holiday as well as a raft of health & safety legislation.
Our European social model proves that it is possible to maintain economic growth alongside high levels of employment with high social security spending and quality public services available to all. Indeed, recent levels of economic growth in the EU are better - and certainly more equitable - than the deregulated USA.
However, in recent years, social Europe has floundered. Its previous achievements remain on the statute book, but new ones are few and far between. The Barroso Commission has had a somewhat one-sided focus on market liberalisation which, combined with the lack of progress in the review of the decade-old directive on Working Time and the delays in adopting a directive on vulnerable temporary agency workers, is leading to rising trade union dissatisfaction. This is in danger of expressing itself in a growing scepticism about the value and purpose of European integration.
The political repercussions have started to be felt. In September last year, trade union frustration at the lack of progress in resolving the Working Time and Temporary Agency workers directives and the protocol negotiated by the UK on the Charter of Rights, boiled over, with TUC Congress approving a motion tabled by the normally pro-European GMB, calling for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Moreover, the "Vaxholm" and "Viking" and other cases, where the European Court of Justice appeared to rule that an employer's right to 'freedom of established' took precedence over the right of unions to strike, were perceived by the ETUC as a further slap in the face.
But the balance sheet can be changed. It is ultimately the results of political choices expressed in legislation that determine how social Europe is, and the court simply clarifies the meaning of existing legislation, which has been to have unexpected loopholes which can and must be corrected.
Legislative priorities also include the need to build on the government's compromise between business and unions and break the dea dlock on Temporary Agency Workers - a major priority which should be adopted by the European Parliament before the end of this year. They also include the revision of the Working Time directive, proposals for stronger anti-discrimination legislation, amendments to the European Works Council Directive, which gives 10 million workers across the EU have the right to information and consultation on company decisions and consultation rights for workers on cross-border takeovers.
The Tories oppose these advances for social Europe and are seeking to turn back the clock on EU laws that protect workers. David Cameron has pledged that a Tory government would take Britain out of the social chapter - a bold promise that offers a clear dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives and, unwittingly, highlighted one of the strengths of having social protection legislation at EU rather than national level. As restoring Britain 's opt-out would require the agreement of every EU country, it would be very difficult for Cameron to repeal the Social Chapter.
One thing is for sure, we cannot return to the isolationist stance of the 1980s when Labour clung to the wrong-headed mantra that the EU was a 'capitalist's club'. This is a recipe for political impotence, and would leave us isolated from our socialist colleagues in the European Parliament and fellow trade-unionists in the ETUC. Rather, we should join with them to ensure that our single European market is not a free-for-all for multi-national companies but is a rules-based, socially just economic system that protects the weak and vulnerable from the full harshness of unrestrained market forces. The EU is a political and social and project - a s Delors put it in his TUC speech: "No one falls in love with a market".
This is the battle that Labour MEPs are engaged in week-in and week-out in the European Parliament in adopting, rejecting or amending European legislation. The common rules that we have laid down for the common market on consumer protection, environmental standards, work place rights, health and safety legislation and such like is fundamental to this. We do not win every battle, but with our colleagues in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament we can, and do, make a real difference.
Delors' speech in 1988 prompted the then TUC Chairman Ron Todd to comment that, after nearly 10 years of Thatcherism, the EU was "the only card game in town". After over a decade of a Labour government, Europe is self-evidently no longer the only game in town. But like national politics, it remains a political battleground that makes decisions that affect our daily lives. Abandoning this battlefield would leave the way c lear for the unrestrained and unregulated free trade that the Conservatives dream of. The social vision of Europe is central to the intellectual armoury of the centre-left and is too important not to fight for - and, as the Socialist Vice President of the Commission, Margot Wallstrom, recently said, "the right of collective bargaining and action is not secondary to internal market rules". It's time to make this a reality.
This article was originally published by Comment Is Free for the Guardian in September 2008