Lisbon marks the completion of the social Europe project and should be supported with a Yes vote, writes Ruairí Quinn
AT THE earliest stages of the European project, the need for a social dimension was recognised. It became the task of the European Community through economic expansion to foster and promote the growth of employment and to raise the living standards of all citizens in member states. A social dimension has always been the guiding principle of the construction of a single market. Over the decades, Europe has warmly embraced what has become known as the European social model.
Social fairness is an ideal that has been a cornerstone of European socialist thinking in my entire time involved in the labour movement. Job creation and economic growth have at all times been mirrored by a social, inclusive philosophy.
The evidence for this can be seen in this country more so than anywhere else. Thirty-five years ago, we were a proud people, as we still are, but we were a poor people, which thankfully we are no longer. This transformation into a dynamic, prosperous and forward-looking nation was no accident.
Over the past 20 years, Irish exports have risen from just over 30 per cent of gross domestic product in the early 1980s to more than 100 per cent now. The period from 1973 to 2003 saw €58 billion in common agricultural policy, structural and cohesion funds. This is the equivalent of €15,000 for every man, woman and child in this State.
We, as citizens of this old nation, in partnership with our brothers and sisters across the 27 sovereign states that make up the EU, are being confronted with rapid social change. Together we are facing an array of potentially devastating challenges, including climate change, the trafficking of women and children, cross-border crime and the drugs epidemic. In the past 10 years, 500,000 women and children were trafficked into Europe. In the past 12 months, €50 billion worth of drugs was imported into Europe by criminal gangs who for years have profited from human misery.
Unchecked and unregulated globalisation is intensifying competition from markets around the world. When we look to Asia, we see the emergence of India and China as the next great economic powers.
In the face of national, European and global challenges, I believe that it is time to equip the EU with the necessary tools to deal effectively and efficiently with these challenges and threats collectively. These 21st-century challenges were foremost in the minds of the authors of the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty will strengthen Ireland and Europe's ability to meet these challenges head on and to come out the other side a greater, more united, socially democratic continent where people are prioritised and the most vulnerable in society are given every opportunity to achieve their own personal potential.
Europe is also facing the demands of changing family and working patterns, the need for new skills, mobility and diversity, and increasing inequalities, to mention but a few.
European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, in an address to the Social Agenda Forum, highlighted the need to shape a modern social agenda for Europe. He said a social reality check was needed to confront modern realities, that "today child poverty is as much of an issue as poverty in old age; generational inequalities mean that young people do not have access to the secure jobs, housing and generous pensions".
He highlighted the need to "reinforce the Lisbon strategy as an agenda that empowers and equips Europeans for a globalising world [ and] an agenda based on shared European values".
The treaty offers a vision of a democratic and accountable Europe with the citizen at its centre. The Europe of the Lisbon Treaty is a social Europe, founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law.
This treaty, more so than any other piece of European legislation in its history, enshrines social protection into the core of all the union's activities. Through the Charter of Fundamental Rights, this treaty envisages a Europe of equality. With the passing of the treaty, the charter will be enshrined into EU law, making it one of the most extensive legally binding statements of human rights and citizens' entitlements.
According to the Irish Human Rights Commission: "The central importance of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is that it eschews the traditional distinction drawn between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other and places all such rights on the same footing, thus elevating the status of traditionally neglected rights within the community."
It will strengthen the rights of all European citizens and offer unprecedented protection to all of us in terms of our basic rights at all levels. Its presence will have lifelong significance from infancy to maturity; its spectrum is that immense. It's about making the lives of all its citizens from the very youngest to the most mature as pleasant and fulfilling as they could want them to be.
As a continent, we still have a long road to travel to achieve this goal.
The social imbalance that existed in this country prior to joining the EU has in many ways, thankfully, been eradicated. We as workers have benefited from a portfolio of European social legislation such as working time, health and safety in the workplace, the protection of young workers, parental leave, equal pay, greater equality, social security, anti-discrimination, women's rights and countless other areas. We, as a people, can be justifiably proud of the social democratic agenda which, via our EU membership, we have been able to encompass wholeheartedly into our legislative framework.
There has been much talk about "social dumping", "a race to the bottom" and other negative language used by some on the No side, who for their own reasons do not want to see the social model of Europe achieved. They talk eloquently about legal cases of which either they have little or no understanding or, as seems to be the case with at least some, they fully understand but choose to mislead others about, in the hopes of scuttling the completion of the European social project.
The Viking case is a classic example of this. It is touted by the No side in this campaign as an example of the evil monster that is the European Court of Justice. I wonder if they are at any stage going to admit what the ruling in this case truly was, ie the court ruled in the Viking case that it is a fundamental right of EU citizens that, where their livelihood is threatened, direct action is an acceptable and well-established route for them to take. The Charter of Fundamental Rights goes far beyond this in several core employee rights areas.
I welcome the decision of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to come out for a Yes vote, as this treaty, and the charter in particular, addresses many of the concerns of socialists and trade unionists down through the years. This treaty, with the Charter of Fundamental Rights playing such an integral role in it, gives Irish workers unprecedented rights.
Our membership of the EU has been very good for the working men and women of Ireland. In particular it has given our legislators a social conscience. It is important that we rise above the scaremongering and lies peddled by the No side and for all of us both inside and outside the trade union movement to ask just one simple question: will a Yes vote on June 12th be beneficial to all the citizens of Ireland?
The answer to this question is a clear and resounding yes. The onus is on each and every one of us to ensure that a Yes vote is secured because, if we don't, we will witness the sorry sight of Irish workers voting against something which offers them so much.
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Ruairí Quinn is chairman of the Irish Alliance for Europe. He is a Labour Party TD for Dublin South-East and a former minister for finance