Germany leads charge to make treaty more ‘social’

Germany and other member states strongly supportive of the EU constitution want to add a social protocol to the rejected treaty in a bid to win over French and Dutch support. Some EU leaders are even seeking a commitment to EU-wide minimum guarantees on income and levels of social protection. But the move is likely to complicate negotiations with the UK, which is expected to resist strongly the addition of any new social rights to the constitution.

The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that an additional protocol emphasising the EU’s concern for social protection and workers’ rights would defuse opposition to the constitution from citizens in France, who voted against the text in 2005 in protest against what they saw as the Union’s free-market economic policies, and from Dutch voters who were protesting against enlargement and immigration.

Ségolène Royal, the socialist candidate for the French presidency, called for a "social chapter" to be added to the text so that "workers’ rights are taken into consideration in the new Europe".

Following a meeting with Royal last Wednesday (16 January), Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said: "We have to complete the treaty with a more binding social declaration."

Juncker said that EU leaders should agree to have a "minimum social salary throughout the EU" with a minimum entry-level income, a guaranteed income, whose level would be set by member states, as well as common rules on firing staff.

John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, warned that a social protocol would be a "battlefield" in the UK government’s "war on social Europe", like the fight over working time. While he welcomed the German idea, he said trade unions’ response would depend on the content of a protocol. "It’s got to be enough to address the charge that the constitution is [an economically] liberal document," he said.

Ernest-Antoine Seillière, president of the European employers’ federation, now renamed BusinessEurope, doubted whether any social protocol should go as far as including recommendations on a minimum wage. "There are countries where there are ‘virtual’ minimum salaries and others where the minimum salary plays a major role, for instance the ‘SMIC’ in France. If the minimum salary is virtual, it makes no sense to put it in the constitution. If, on the contrary, it has an economic impact, it also makes no sense to be put in the constitution," Seillière said.

German Social Democrat MEP Jo Leinen, who chairs the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, said that a social protocol might be optional for some member states to sign up to.

The idea is moving up the political agenda of re-emphasising the EU’s social aspects, in response to growing concern that the Union favours liberalisation more than it protects workers from the challenges of globalisation and greater competition. Martin Schulz, the leader of the Socialists in Parliament, called for a "social impact assessment" on new legislation. Schulz said this would help to convince citizens that the EU was a "force for social progress". He said that he wanted to see concrete proposals from the Commission and Council before the spring summit in March.

Nicolas Schmit, Luxembourg’s European affairs minister, pointed out that the constitution required the EU to promote a high-level of employment and the guarantee of adequate social protection. But, he said, EU leaders now had to see whether this social clause (Article III-117), was sufficient to convince citizens that the "social dimension was better anchored in all European policies".

EU officials said that the declaration on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, to be approved on 25 March, could stress the social protection provided by the EU. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso suggested last week that solidarity and social cohesion could be one of five key themes for the declaration.

Germany and other member states strongly supportive of the EU constitution want to add a social protocol to the rejected treaty in a bid to win over French and Dutch support. Some EU leaders are even seeking a commitment to EU-wide minimum guarantees on income and levels of social protection. But the move is likely to complicate negotiations with the UK, which is expected to resist strongly the addition of any new social rights to the constitution.