MEPs give strong backing to EU services proposal

By Chris Jones - 16th February 2006

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MEPs have voted in controversial proposals for opening up the EU services sector getting the broad political backing they had wanted.

Members backed the amended proposal by 394 votes to 215, with 33 abstentions.

With more than 400 amendments to the commission’s original 2004 proposal, the European parliament has completely rewritten the so-called Bolkestein directive.

But deep divisions remained over the substance of the proposal, despite the compromise deal patched together by the two main political groups last week and last minute negotiations in the halls of Strasbourg.

This became clear early on in the voting, with an amendment allowing private health services to be included within the scope of the directive.

Support from the centre-right group for this amendment sparked an angry outburst from centre-right rapporteur Evelyne Gebhardt, demanding that the EPP stand by their compromise agreement.

Shadow rapporteur Malcolm Harbour explained that this amendment was not part of the compromise deal, and that EPP members had a free vote on the issue.

And the compromise amendment which states that all health services, private or public, should be excluded from the scope was duly accepted later in the session, seeming to override the earlier vote.

But the dissention over health services was nothing compared to the uproar that broke out over the wording of paragraph three of key amendment 293, which covered a range of controversial issues.

Monica Frassoni MEP, co-leader of the Greens, objected to the last minute decision of the centre-right and centre-left negotiators to delete references to consumer protection and social policy from the list of cases when member states could restrict access to service providers.

This had been a key demand of the EPP, who were concerned that it gave too much leeway to member states to block cross border services, and the centre-left agreed to delete the references on the grounds that consumer protection and social policy were covered by other amendments.

But Frassoni asked for the original amendment, including the deleted words, to be voted – a point of order rejected by parliament president Josep Borrel.

In the end, there was an overwhelming majority in favour of the revised provision, which had provoked the most debate over the last week.

Graham Watson MEP, leader of the Liberal group in the parliament, had said his group would call for the entire paragraph to be deleted, and that their support for the deal as a whole could hinge on this vote.

But a spokesman for the ALDE group told this website that at the last minute the parliament’s legal service had told them that the compromise package had to be voted in its entirety, and that a separate vote on one element package would not be possible.

Watson’s group had no choice but to back the compromise deal, even if around a third of the Liberal members were opposed to the inclusion of other provisions allowing member states to restrict market access on the grounds of “public policy”.

Despite the broad compromise, both centre-right and centre-left MEPs had tabled their own amendments, responding to concerns from individual group members.

For example, centre-right MEPs from the new member states were concerned that the deletion of clauses referring to the rights of workers from other member states would put their workers at a disadvantage.

But amendments to reinstate these clauses were rejected by the plenary.

Centre-left members also failed to give their full support for the compromise package, with some MEPs tabling separate amendments aimed at bolstering member states rights and ramping up social protection.

But these too were voted down by the parliament.

The predictions of Malcolm Harbour ahead of the vote proved to be correct, with most of the voting following that of the internal market committee vote in November.

This means that attempts by the centre-left group to exclude all public services from the directive were unsuccessful, although both sides did agree that public services not open to competition would be excluded.