Initiatives aim to achieve a single market for work

Date: 22/02/1996

By Rory Watson

THE long-running campaign to remove the remaining obstacles to the free movement of workers was stepped up this week with fresh initiatives from both the European Commission and MEPs.

As the Parliament threw its weight behind foreign language assistants at Italian universities in their lengthy battle for equal status and pay with their Italian colleagues, the Commission unveiled plans to make it easier for people in a large range of craft and commerce professions to set themselves up and work in other EU countries.

The problems faced by foreign lecturers working in Italian universities has highlighted the difficulties encountered by the Commission in persuading member states to implement EU rules on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

MEPs have called for tough action to resolve the dispute, voting overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution demanding that legal action be brought against the Italian government in the European Court of Justice if it continues to refuse to implement an earlier judgement calling on Rome to end discrimination.

Euro MPs insist that new national legislation which came into force last month brought neither the legal status nor remuneration of foreign language teachers at Italian universities into line with those of native associate lecturers.

Irish Green MEP Patricia McKenna highlighted the teachers' plight when she told her colleagues about an Irishman teaching at the University of Rome who was denied teacher status and found his salary cut by a third while his workload increased by a quarter.

British Socialist MEP Hugh McMahon, who has played a leading role in the battle to improve the working conditions of non-Italian university teachers, accused the Italian government of “infringing upon the civil liberties and workers' rights of 1,500 foreign lecturers in Italian universities”.

He disagreed with Italian Consumer Commissioner Emma Bonino, who told MEPs that legal action had to be put on ice while the conformity of the new law with EU rules was examined.

Pressing for early action, McMahon complained: “This dispute has lasted for more than a decade and is bringing the European Union into disrepute.”

The Parliament's attack on the Italian government is all the more embarrassing because it comes in the immediate aftermath of the dismissal of 88 foreign lecturers at the Istituto Universitario Orientale Napoli.

The sackings have prompted the chairman of the Committee for the Defence of Foreign Lecturers David Petrie to appeal to Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn to intervene immediately to get the lecturers reinstated.

As the Commission was being urged to take a tougher line with Italy, it unveiled a proposal this week for a new directive to help 'commerce and craft' professionals who want to work in other EU countries to overcome the obstacles all too often placed in their path.

The draft legislation replaces 35 separate directives adopted between 1963 and 1982 covering various individual professions from hotel managers, restaurateurs, travel agents and doctors to hairdressers.

“This new proposal will not only make it easier for people in these professions to set themselves up and work in other member states, but will also considerably simplify and rationalise Community law in this area by replacing 35 directives with just one,” said Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti.

“This initiative reflects the Commission's objective of ensuring that the EU in general, and the single market in particular, benefits the individual citizen.”