By Chris Jones - 4th October 2005
MEPs have agreed to postpone voting on amendments to the services directive until November 21, with a full plenary vote of the European Parliament now due in January.
German Social Democrat MEP Evelyne Gebhardt was due to present 1,400 amendments to the European Commission’s proposal on liberalising the EU services sector to the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee on Tuesday.
But Conservative (EPP-ED) and Liberal (ALDE) delegations insisted that more time was necessary for their MEPs to “clarify positions and table better compromise amendments”.
The postponing of the committee’s vote until its meeting in November means that the amendments will not be voted on by all MEPs until the January plenary session.
Gebhardt said that the refusal of the Conservatives and Liberals to accept any alternative to the country-of-origin principle – which means that service providers would be subject to the laws of the country they come from, rather than those of the country in which they were providing the service – had led to “total blockage”.
But Malcolm Harbour, the spokesman for the EPP-ED on the internal market committee, said that the delay was necessary because of the complexity of the amendments tabled by Gebhardt.
“The EPP-ED Group remains fully committed to safeguarding the freedom to provide services and improving and clarifying the legal text.“
“We want better legislation and the time now at our disposal will allow us to achieve this aim."
He said the extra time would also the EPP-ED to table an alternative proposal based on the ‘freedom to provide services' concept, which would follow Gebhardt’s proposal and exclude public health, social security services and services of general interest such as public transport.
Anneli Jäätteenmäki, the ALDE group spokesperson on services, said that the postponement would increase the chances of reaching a compromise, not reduce them.
"The unexpected pause for reflection provides us with a useful breathing space but must be used wisely to broker agreement and resolve the political deadlock over this important dossier," she said.
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