Bolkestein’s directive refuses to die

By Aoife White

Date: 16/06/05

MEPs will vote on the European Commission's plans to reform the internal market for services in October after a busy summer reading through more than 900 amendments. If the European Parliament manages to agree on a report by German Socialist MEP Evelyne Gebhardt during the first reading, then the Council of Ministers should start its first substantive discussion of the services directive in the autumn.

According to Paul Hofheinz, president of Brussels-based think-tank, the Lisbon Council, the Commission's draft is a "pretty conservatively written, technical" document. "When it finally passes, everyone will have a hard time remembering what all the fuss was about. The rhetoric has become so crazy," he said.

Hofheinz is a strong advocate of the services directive - dubbed the Bolkestein directive after its original author, the then European commissioner Frits Bolkestein.

Hofheinz said: "It's a step in the right direction…we need to put people back to work."

But Claire Roumet, secretary-general of the European Liaison Committee for Social Housing, Cecodhas, takes a different view, saying that the original proposal was "not manageable" for the non-profit social services her group represents. "No one is able to look at the thousands or tens of thousands of rules in our sector in each country. It's not realistic," she said.

Both agree on one point: the debate has become highly politicised. "It's much too political…nobody is listening to each other anymore. This ideological debate around it is not helping at all," said Roumet.

Hofheinz said the discussion was now taking place on two levels: "There's this public shouting going on over it and there's a quieter more mature debate at the heart of

Anticipation of a vote at the European Parliament on the European Commission's plans to reform the internal market for services in October 2005, after a summer reading through more than 900 amendments.

European Commission: PreLex: COM(2004)2: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Services in the Internal Market http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2002:002:FIN

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