EU employment rules a mixed blessing

The situation which began at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire and has now spread across the country has highlighted a glaring weakness in the interpretation of EU free migratory employment laws. The idea of a mobile European workforce, free to take up jobs in all EU countries where there are needs to fill, is a good one and I support it - as I do our membership of the European Union. Indeed thousands of Britons have taken advantage of these rules to find work in Spain, France and Germany and, of course, Britain has had many workers from Poland and other eastern european countries to fill a need when our economy was expanding.



The greatest test of these freedoms was always going to come in times of recession when the economy is contracting and jobs are being shed. If one looks at the free movement of labour in a theoretical sense, then it makes perfect sense - certainly in terms of traditional right wing economic theory. An imbalance occurs through protected wage agreements in one country and, in a recession, companies seek to protect profits by legally importing workers whose wage scales do not fall within the protected agreements, thus production costs come down, wages of the indigenous population come down to match and thus they become competitive again.

Great in theory but in practice what has happened with the energy plants is a red rag to a bull and a recipe for industrial unrest and something has to clearly be done to stop a deliberate attempt to get round national wage agreements and the government is right to suggest that there are loopholes here which need to be closed. On the other hand I am sorry this is giving succour to all those fanatics on the right - including the BNP - who are using this issue cynically as an argument for leaving the European Community. In my view membership of the EU is a much greater strength than a weakness and we should resist the temptation to only take from it what suits us and refuse to honour the rest. This has been Britain's position right from day 1 and why we are regarded with suspicion as the 'problem child' by so many in the EC