DEREGULATION and liberalisation of national markets could cost the European Union 1.1 million jobs, according to a senior Irish trade unionist.
The general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, Mr David Begg, told a conference on European social policy that European bankers seemed to think that stability was about low inflation rates rather than people.
Labour MEP Ms Bernie Malone said Europe must be more than one giant free-trade area, with a single currency.
"If European integration is to move forward in the years ahead, then the single market and the single currency must be complemented by a strong and vibrant social employment dimension," she said.
However, the director of IBEC's European office, Mr Peter Brennan, told the same conference in Dublin yesterday that competitiveness must underlie any new Europe. Without competitiveness the EU would be unable to pay for the social protection measures towards which its citizens aspired.
Ireland has slipped in the international competitiveness ratings from ninth to 22nd place in just three years, he said. "Competitiveness is a day-to-day reality for business."
Mr Brennan said that extending and improving social protection, without regard for the need to live within our means, would only jeopardise prospects for growth and hurt those we meant to help.
We would be "foolish to equip ourselves with high European cost levels at a time when Europe as a whole is losing out in global competition, and is increasingly beset by structural problems."