Dr. Peter Rigney:

I thank the committee for the invitation to ICTU to lay out our views on the future of Europe and the particular issues which are forming the debate on the future of Europe. Why do we have a European Union? If we look back to the twentieth century when Europe was laid waste to twice in 30 years we will find that is why/. One hundred years ago this week, armies were grinding each other down in the muddy fields of Passchendaele, among them many people from Ireland. As the number of veterans of these wars dwindles - in the case of the First World War all have died - the collective memory of the founding purpose of the European Union has dimmed.

The founding fathers of the European Union, such as Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman, experienced two world wars as adults, with two decades of peace in the 1920s and 1930s like the half time between two halves of a match. Many people think that the Union, particularly under the Barroso Commission, has been its own worst enemy. We welcome the attempt by the Juncker Commission to relaunch Europe and social dialogue at a European level.

ICTU has participated in the debate on the future of Europe through the European economic and social committee, which recently held a seminar in the Mansion House in Dublin to discuss the issue. We also have an input at European level through our affiliation to the ETUC. We launched an international affiliation in 1973 when we joined the European Union because at that time trade union international politics was tied down in Cold War issues. When we joined the EU we took the decision to join ETUC because that was where many decisions were being made at an Irish level. It is often forgotten that one of the first fruits of EU membership for Irish citizens was the decision to do away with the marriage bar on women and introduce equal pay.

There are five options being explored at a European level. When I was young my very first job was in the Civil Service, and I was advised by a cynical principal officer as to how to get stuff through Government. He was tongue in cheek to a certain extent, and said normally one lays out three options, one of which is plainly daft, the other of which has superficial attractions but has a flaw and a third which is what the Department wants.

A number of the five Juncker options are not going to happen such as, for example, carrying on. There will be change. It is politically impossible that there will be nothing but the Single Market. Doing less more efficiently is attractive on the surface, but is probably a flawed policy. What will probably emerge is some amalgam of options three or four or three and four. Scenario three, that is, those who want to do more, is code for a two-speed Europe. There is a debate to be had about that.

I do not want to talk about how those five choices will be sieved through, rather about our two strategic objectives. Our objectives centre on the task of restoring the concept of a social Europe and reversing or mitigating some of the policies and European Court of Justice judgments which privilege freedom to conduct business over labour rights. I refer to the actions of the Troika in some countries and to the European Court of Justice judgments in cases such as Viking and Laval, which were cases taken against Scandinavian trade unions in respect of workers from the Baltic states working there.

There is a whole body of case law there, but the core of it was that the European Courts of Justice found that the freedom to carry out business had precedence over freedom to protect labour rights.

It would appear to us that President Juncker’s proposed European pillar of social rights constitutes a recognition by Brussels that the Union will not survive if it does not re-establish some social credentials with its citizens. Since 2008 the EU has been seen, for better or for worse, as the bearer of harsh tidings to its citizens. Much of the pillar of social rights is at present aspirational, but it will evolve as time goes on, and will form a reference point for the development of European social policy in the future. The two concrete proposals of the pillar are a written statement directive, which will update the previous written statement directive which goes back to 1972. It will deal with issues around the so-called gig economy and bogus self-employment, and with social security rights for self-employed people, focusing again on aspects of the gig economy and work platforms such as Uber. It is planned that the pillar will be proclaimed at a summit in Gothenburg next month, and we expect the full support of the Irish Government for this process.

The other important point for Congress - this may seem a technical point but it is extremely important - is modification of the mandate of the European Central Bank, ECB, beyond combatting inflation. The ECB website informs us that its mandate is:

"To maintain price stability is the primary objective of the Eurosystem and of the single monetary policy for which it is responsible. This is laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 127 (1)".

If we step back and look at the mandate of the Federal Reserve bank in the US, we see that it is governed by the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, also known as the Humphrey Hawkins Act. This Act specifically instructs the nation to strive toward four ultimate goals: full employment; growth in production; price stability; and balance of trade and budget. Fulfilling in full all of these four goals all of the time is a tall order, but the debate must start somewhere. We cannot blame the ECB for carrying out its mandate. Our attitude is that we have to have a debate on the mandate, and a balanced mandate for the ECB, between combating inflation and the preservation of full employment. This would provide a balance between the economic and the social.

There is a third aspect, and in illustrating my point I would like to draw the committee’s attention to a recent spat between France and Germany on the one hand and the Eastern member states on the other. France and Germany decided to apply their minimum wage laws to trucks passing through their territory, for example from Hungary to Spain. The Commission launched infringement procedures against France and Germany. So far this is a fairly mundane subject. However, according to a Polish radio website, Ireland joined with the Eastern countries, Spain and Portugal in supporting the Commission’s action. My point is not the subject matter. I do not automatically say that France and Germany are right. In industrial relations one must listen to balanced arguments on the other side. If someone decided that his or her driver would not set foot in France or Germany, would they be expected to be paying higher wages? The issue for legislators is that decisions are being made in committee in Brussels to modify European legislation. Do Irish legislators have an input in the process? In this set-piece case, we have France and Germany versus the eastern countries on the other side. France and Germany are big players. Who took the decision that we should pitch in against them? What were the arguments for and against that? This is not a matter for me, for unions or employers. It is a matter for legislators to look and see if there is a gap, to find out who makes the decisions and where the mandate comes from.

It is difficult to know what to expect, reading the newspapers, but it would seem prudent to prepare for the worst case scenario after Brexit. In the world after Brexit, Ireland's foreign policy in Europe will have to undergo a reappraisal. Up to now, if myself or my colleagues were arguing with the Irish authorities over a piece of socially progressive legislation, we would often get the answer, "That is fine, but the British would never favour that". Now that the British are gone we are going to have to invent another bogeyman. We are going to have to form our own foreign policy.