Europe was not in crisis over the stalled constitutional treaty, president of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen told a conference in Dublin yesterday.
People were not saying No to Europe but to the present political leadership. "People are saying No because we have too many McCreevys in Europe," Mr Rasmussen said.
People wanted Europe to speak to them more directly, create "more and better jobs" and combat cross-border crime and terrorism more successfully.
"We need a single market for services," he said. He would like, for example, to see more competition among lawyers, but competition had to be on a fair and transparent basis.
There was a fair chance of ensuring, through the European Parliament, that labour law and collective agreements were separated from the services directive, which was "about some services, not all services".
It was necessary to draw a line between public-interest services, for example, caring for the elderly, schooling and education, and other types of services.
The idea of the People's Dialogue initiative of the PES was to ensure that people all around Europe were discussing jobs, security, the environment and social protection.
"Our approach will be bottom-up and not top-down," Mr Rasmussen said.
Social democrats and socialists were not the ones saying "less Europe"; this demand was coming from neo-liberals who wanted "less Europe" because they thought it meant "more market".
He said he was hearing the argument that Europe could not afford social protection because of competition from China, India and the US. But his own country, Denmark, as well as Sweden, Norway and Finland, had shown that "we can afford it if we do it in the right way".
Indicating Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte in the audience, he said: "The Irish Labour Party under your leadership, Pat, have shown the right way."
But he regretted that others on the European left were giving way to resignation and apathy, accepting that jobs were disappearing.
What was needed was a new road map for combining flexibility and social security. His own father had only changed jobs a few times, but the next generation would change 10 or 15 times.
The conference was the first in a series organised throughout the EU by national member parties of the PES under the heading, "A People's Dialogue: What Future Policies for Europe?"
Mr Rabbitte told the conference that neo-liberal and right-wing politicians and their policies were the source of the disillusionment of voters with the European project.
Former commission president Jacques Delors had made a pact with the labour movement whereby the single market was supported on the basis that the European social model would be extended.
"Many of our citizens believe we have moved away from that contract," Mr Rabbitte said.
The services directive highlighted the "tussle" between the neo-liberal vision to "let it rip and give us plenty of cheap labour" and those who wanted social protection.
"We should not resist competition in services but we should welcome it, consistent with the enforcement of labour standards."
Speaking from the floor, Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa said there was "a deep sense of ignorance" in the media as to the meaning of the services directive.
He criticised articles in The Irish Times which, he said, were "basically straight 'lifts' from Government briefings".