Kill the service directive 2

The socialist and the conservative fraction of the EP have agreed today on a compromise concerning the service directive.

The wording of the agreement is not yet public, but the major cornerstones of the agreement are the following: 1) the phrase "country of origin" or similar phrases will be deleted from the draft, 2) labor and social law of the host country shall apply, but 3) service providers licensed in one country are to provide in all EU countries (usual exceptions from this market principle - security, national health, etc. do rarely apply). 4) Exemption of public-interest sectors like healthcare or education is still not agreed upon. The conservative fraction does not seem to be willing to compromise on this issue.

This means that national regulations for employees can be averted by forms of self-employment, fake pseudo-self-employment (a practice already widely used by service-providing companies) and temporary employment.

In this form, the compromise on the service directive is not at all adequate. Especially the exemption for sectors of public interest must be a sinequanon-condition.