Negotiators unperturbed by UK ultimatum to IGC

Date: 14/11/1996

By Michael Mann

RELATIONS between the UK government and the European Commission have sunk to a new low in the wake of this week's ruling against the British challenge to the 48-hour working week directive.

The UK's threat to use its veto to block an overall agreement at the end of the Intergovernmental Conference unless it wins concessions over social policy has provoked undisguised anger within the Commission.

It is still smarting from the UK's obstructionist tactics during the mad cow crisis, which made its task of trying to broker a compromise between the British and the rest of Europe all the more difficult.

UK Premier John Major fired his latest salvo after the European Court of Justice rejected British claims that the Working Time Directive had been improperly adopted as a health and safety measure, thus requiring the approval of a qualified majority of member states rather than unanimous agreement.

Major stressed his determination to win an opt-out from the terms of the directive and to ensure that all health and safety legislation adopted under Article 118(a) of the treaty would in future require unanimous support.

This drew an uncharacteristically curt response from Commission President Jacques Santer. In a letter to the British premier sent just hours after the ECJ's verdict was announced, he warned Major that the UK would have to begin to put the measure into national law.

Santer added: “I have always been of the opinion that adequate social provisions must be part of a well functioning internal market. In my view, this does not amount to placing unnecessary burdens on businesses or damaging competitiveness.”

Social Affairs Commissioner Pádraig Flynn was even more outspoken, saying the UK, having failed to get what it wanted through the “front door” (in negotiations with fellow member states) or through the “back door” (by challenging the directive in the ECJ), was now attempting to “break in” through the IGC.

Seasoned IGC negotiators, however, made it clear this week that they were unperturbed by the British threats.

Member state officials pointed out that Major's ultimatum would only threaten to generate a political crisis if he won an unexpected election victory next year. They stressed that the really hard bargaining in the Intergovernmental Conference would only begin after the UK election, which must take place by May.

This view was echoed by Zygmunt Tyszkiewicz, secretary-general of employers' federation UNICE.

“He can huff and puff as much as he likes, but the real substantive negotiations will happen in the six-week period between the election and the June summit,” he said.

Although the opposition Labour Party insisted this week that it would not support any extension of majority voting in the social field, it has pledged to sign up to the Maastricht social chapter if elected.

If Major unexpectedly remains in power, he has the ability to hold the rest of the Union to ransom. But as with any negotiation, there is an element of give and take.

“There is nothing wrong with that procedure. Whether people then agree with the substance of the proposal is another thing. But, of course, the treaty is clear on this point. Any member state has the complete right to make whatever proposal it wants,” Denmark's IGC negotiator Niels Ersbøll told European Voice this week.

Germany, for example, wants more effective decision-making in justice and home affairs, while France wants to bolster the EU's common foreign and security policy. But critics see a fundamental difference in the UK approach, claiming the British proposals are almost exclusively negative and pointing out that they focus on reversing the ECJ's verdict on a specific case.