Frankenstein’s – or rather Bolkenstein’s – monster was resurrected in Brussels on Tuesday, reopening some raw wounds.

The services directive, which received its nickname from angry trade unions after it was tabled by Frits Bolkestein, the fiery liberal Dutch ex-internal market commissioner, was the hottest political potato in town last year.

It was supposed to allow plumbers, doctors, hairdressers and other to ply their trade freely across borders. Unions and Socialist parties said it would lead to social dumping and a race to the bottom for labour rights. Rightwingers said the EU’s internal market was a nonsense without it, since service trade was far bigger than that in goods.

A painfully stitched-together compromise removed health services and the idea that they should abide by the laws of their countries of origin rather than where they worked.

The European parliament patted itself on the back for coming up with the proposal and getting warring national governments to endorse it too. On Tuesday, however, dissident rightwingers in the European People’s party joined Liberals to back a surprise call for health services to be put back in.

Toine Manders, a Dutch Liberal, tabled the amendment to a non-binding report, which was carried 20-18 in the industry committee, with the EPP split. Charlotte Cederschiöld, a Swede, welcomed the vote, “wishing for health care to be included in the services directive”, before being slapped down and issuing a second statement with the offending phrase removed. Marianne Thyssen, a Belgian, regretted that the “unwise paragraph” had “slipped into” the final text.

Martin Schulz, the Socialist group leader, immediately called his EPP counterpart Joseph Daul to check that the deal was still in place. He was assured it was. “We have an agreement that health services will be kept out of the services directive. It was a confused vote that could have been better prepared,” a spokesman for Daul said.

Socialists are demanding that it is when the entire parliament votes on the report in Strasbourg.

Both parties believe the European Commission should come up with a proposal to break the deadlock. Markos Kyprianou, the health commissioner, is drawing up plans to regulate health tourism, allowing patients to cross borders, and the movement of health professionals.

Socialists are also pressing for a directive that would exempt public services from cross-border competition, something the liberal-dominated Commission opposes.

So Bolkenstein should be laid to rest again, at least for a time. The divisions in the EPP, split between northern reformers and southern centrists, may not be so easy to stitch together.

May 8th, 2007 in MEPs | Permalink