The European Court of Justice twice indicated yesterday that it thinks there are limits to applying the EU's internal market principles in two cases with strong parallels with the Irish Ferries dispute.
In the two preliminary verdicts, described by the European Trade Union Confederation as "landmark", the court's top legal advisers suggested that trade unions have the right to industrial action to prevent social dumping.
The more publicised "Vaxholm" case was sparked after Swedish trade unions objected to a construction company from Latvia ignoring national collective wage bargains by paying its workers lower wages. The Swedish trade union blockaded the site in the town of Vaxholm, eventually forcing the Latvian company, Laval, into bankruptcy.
In his opinion, the advocate general suggested trade unions have the right to take industrial action to compel companies from other member states to pay their workers the same wages as the domestic workers receive under the collective agreements.
According to the court's top adviser, the bloc's internal market rules on the freedom to provide services do not prevent "trade unions from attempting, by means of collective action, to compel a service provider of another member state to subscribe to a rate of pay".
But the opinion cautions that the industrial action must "be motivated by public-interest objectives, such as the protection of workers and the fight against social dumping". The advocate general's opinion is not binding but in the majority of cases the final ruling is similar.
Reacting to the case, Labour MEP Proinsias de Rossa said: "It confirms that the right to take industrial action is not subservient to the right to the free movement of services." The case was seen as a test for a deeply divisive question in the EU - whether internal market rules should take precedence over rules seen as integral to a country's social model, an issue that pitted poorer eastern European countries against richer welfare states such as Sweden and France.
Mr de Rossa said it was a "clear slap in the face" for EU commissioner Charlie McCreevy, in charge of the internal market, who at the height of the emotional debate about the importance of the case in 2005 indicated he thought the Swedish system of collective agreements was in breach of EU rules.
In a separate case, the court delivered a similar preliminary verdict - with the final verdicts in both cases to be delivered in the coming months.
This opinion involved a Finnish ferry company which reflagged its vessel to Estonia to take on more Estonian workers for lower wages than their Finnish counterparts.