Maltese MEPs slam proposed directive

The vote on the Port Services Directive provides the European Parliament with a "golden opportunity to give hope and direction to the many that are yearning for a positive signal," Labour MEP Joseph Muscat said during the debate on the proposed directive at the plenary session in Strasbourg yesterday.

Mr Muscat, who led the Group of European Socialists' position on this directive in the Internal Market Committee, concurred with the European Transport Workers Federation which is labelling the proposal "useless, provocative and unbalanced".

Mr Muscat said the directive would undermine the rights that workers have been striving to achieve for many years. It might also lead to abuses and the erosion of health and safety in sensitive places such as ports, he maintained.

The Labour representative said that competition should be a balanced and rational system where everyone contributes and not where just the weak and the workers end up footing the bill.

He insisted that even those members of the European Parliament who are in favour of port service liberalisation should vote for the rejection of the original directive since they have also voiced their concern on its contents.

Mr Muscat said that Labour and the European Socialists are being consistent in their pledge in favour of a social Europe.

Nationalist MEP David Casa said the European Union directive has more negative than positive aspects and would give rise to more unemployment.

Europe was built on the value of solidarity and MEPs could not dent this value by their decision, he said while addressing the European Popular Party group about the vote to be taken during a plenary session of the Parliament today.

He condemned the violent acts that took place outside the Parliament on Monday, saying that such anti-democratic methods were not beneficial to the cause. While everyone had the right to protest and voice his views, no one had the right to use violence to persuade someone else.

Labour MEP Louis Grech will also be voting against the directive. This was because the directive, he explained in a statement yesterday, would impose unnecessary and unwanted regulations and controls and endanger port workers' livelihood.

He said the directive would lead to a lowering of quality in the service, diminished levels of security and threats to current and future investment.

The directive would not create new markets or bring about fair competition and neither would it create new opportunities for workers.

Earlier in the day, the Labour representatives met with the representatives of the Maltese port workers who were in Strasbourg with the General Workers' Union for a solidarity demonstration organised by the European Transport Workers Federation on Monday.

Maltese workers were not involved in any of the incidents that took place, the Malta Labour Party information office said when reporting Mr Muscat's speech.