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Lisbon Treaty (No. 3)

Although the debate has been fairly wide-ranging, one issue that I do not think we have covered in the necessary detail is the place of working people in Europe. The Lord Chancellor devoted about five minutes of his 45-minute speech to it, and there has been only fragmentary mention of working people in the context of the rights that they can enjoy, but the issue is tremendously important. Europe cannot be a construct of the bureaucrats, no matter how much Peter Mandelson and others like him wish that it were. Unless it puts down roots among the people of Europe, as an institution it has no future. I am interested in the drift of policy dictating the treatment of workers throughout Europe. It could be said that in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s a strong dose of Keynsian politics informed EU policy, but in my opinion and that of other Labour Back Benchers—there may be only a few of us, but that does not mean we are wrong—there is no doubt that the EU is increasingly taking a neo-liberal direction. In that connection, I want to refer to two important recent rulings from the European Court of Justice: the Laval case—nothing to do with the Vichy traitor—and the Viking Line case. I shall deal with them in some detail. At least they will then be on the record, and can form part of the debate about whether trade union rights in Europe have been undermined or are becoming stronger.