The European Union’s two faces on globalisation by Fintan O’Toole
European Union economy ministers met in Brussels on 13 March 2006. It was not a joyful assembly. Piotr Wozniak, the economy minister in Poland's new right-wing government, complained bitterly about the amendments made in February by the European parliament to the so-called services directive, a key piece of legislation aimed at completing the drawn-out process of creating a single EU market. Just before the European parliament vote, Wozniak – along with like-minded colleagues Alan Johnson, the British secretary of state for trade and industry, Etele Baráth, the Hungarian minister for European affairs, Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, the Dutch minister of economic affairs and Milan Urban, the Czech minister of industry and trade – had written to Charlie McCreevy, the internal-market commissioner, warning against any watering down of the directive. Immediately after the parliament voted to do precisely that, Wozniak had declared: "I am not sure if it's worth supporting the law in its present form." Now, at the meeting of EU economy ministers, he claimed that as many as fifteen countries, including most of the EU member-states in east-central Europe which had acceded to the union in May 2004, were unhappy with the amended version of the directive; Wozniak went on to argue, in effect, that the council of ministers should refuse to accept the amendments.
The divisive argument over creating a single market in services reflects the European Union's confusion over globalisation and reveals its need to articulate itself as a political and social project, says Fintan O'Toole of Open Democracy.
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