Trade unionists fighting for the retention of duty-free took their campaign to Brussels yesterday, literally storming the portals of the Council of Ministers and toppling a massive 12-ft steel gate on top of police. Luckily, only dignity and the gate were dented. More than 200 workers from Dublin, Cork and Shannon took part in the demonstration: more than 5,000 workers from all over Europe converged on the building.
A small group, over-exuberant and clearly under the influence of the same-said duty-free, pushed like a rugby scrum against the bars of the great gates of the Justus Lipsius building whose fortifications, unveiled only two years ago, had always suggested an ability to resist tanks.
Not so. To the astonishment of all, the gate, weighing more than a ton and a half, gave, nearly flattening six policemen, who, with commendable good humour in the circumstances, then pushed the crowd back.
Such activities do little to enhance the standing of the cause. But trade union leaders were delighted with the overall turnout, dismissing the gate incident as unfortunate and unrepresentative.
Ms Brenda O'Brien of the European Federation of Transport Unions said the demonstration sent "a powerful message to the council. I hope the council is listening. If jobs are a priority, then it must prove it."
She said she was "deeply disappointed" at the refusal of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to meet the delegation, which later met the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, who expressed the Government's support for the retention campaign.
SIPTU's civil aviation branch secretary, Mr Paul O'Sullivan, warned that the EU would face a popular backlash if it abolished duty-free in 1999 as planned. The suggestion that duty-free was not compatible with the single market was nonsense, he argued. Peripheral regions such as Ireland had to face considerable disadvantage in the market because of excess transport costs. The effect of dutyfree, he said, was "minuscule" compared to that.
Ms Bernie Malone MEP accused the Commission of being a spoil-sport. People enjoyed picking up a bit of duty-free when on holiday, she said.
A representative of the Swedish seafarers' union, SEKO, Mr Toams Abrahamsson, warned that many Baltic ferries would go out of business.
A Commission spokeswoman, Ms Sarah Lambert, insisted there was no need for a special study of the effects of abolition. The decision for abolition in July 1999 had already been taken unanimously, she said.
Ms Lambert said the demonstrators' contention that jobs are threatened by the ending of dutyfree took no account of the fact that its very existence also cost jobs in other parts of the retail sector and in the unsubsidised, competing transport sector.
