EU focus on unemployment stressed

THE approach to unemployment is now the defining issue between two contradictory visions of the European Union, the annual conference of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed heard yesterday.

Mr Des Geraghty, national industrial secretary of SIPTU, told the conference two "incompatible views" on unemployment would be central to the debate at the Inter-Governmental Conference during Ireland's EU presidency, and would decide the success or otherwise of "this historic review" of the Maastricht treaty.

"One vision is of a massive supermarket. This view is promoted assiduously by the UK government and the free market and neo-liberal advocates who see progress being achieved only by a rapidly expanding market-place. . . . with competition as the driving force, a reduced level of social protection for workers and consumers, and minimal institutional reform.

"The other vision is of a `social Europe' driven by the need for economic and social cohesion, balanced integration and institutional effectiveness with economic, social and environmental protection and increased involvement by the citizens in a more democratic society."

The British Prime Minister was the prisoner of a Euro-sceptic Tory party, he added, which was now the major obstacle to the successful outcome of the current Inter-Governmental Conference.

"Unfortunately, much of the UK prejudice on the EU has been supported in Ireland by employer bodies, who may have some legitimate concern about bureaucracy and over-regulation, but have no real justification for constant attacks on the positive benefits of the bulk of European social, regional and environmental policies.

The fight to make unemployment the focus of economic and political policy in Europe must challenge those who write the economic text books to facilitate their own agenda. "It must reject the notion that full employment is to be ignored as a notion from a previous era, and argue that full employment is essentially a problem of political economy.