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talkpoliticsHundreds of truck drivers blocked roads across Bulgaria on Thursday (17 May) as European Union leaders met in Sofia, protesting against proposed EU rules they say would cost them their jobs and put their firms out of business.
See, when people argue that the EU is something like the USSR, where the strong of the day drop down decisions upon the small and weak and prey on them, I tend to take that with some skepticism. But I'm beginning to see their point when guys like Macron try to sell their plans to defend the interests of the French transport companies at the expense of the East European ones, as if it's some kind of effort in favor of "law and order". It certainly isn't helping Europe as a whole, because, well, didn't you say you don't want all those migrants coming to your shores? So why take measures that would ultimately force thousands of truck drivers to relocate to French companies, then? Doesn't make sense.
Mind you, this proposed regulation would also significantly affect river transport on the Danube, and force dozens of East European companies to sail under non-EU flags (to avoid the regulation). Some non-EU countries like Ukraine, Serbia and Moldova have already taken advantage of the situation, taking the business out of Romanian, Bulgarian and other EU-member-state counterparts who would fall under the regulation. So now we're ending up in a situation where valuable tax resource is being drained off the EU budget - and for what? Because some guy called Macron wanted to take a populist measure and polish his image back home in the wake of the socially unpopular reforms he's been undertaking.
This is how Euroskepticism gets fueled. And I assure you it doesn't take a lot of effort to achieve that particularly in East Europe - just look at what's happening in Poland and Hungary! And Italy too.
Essentially, the situation is as follows. While the European Commission and some of the "Old Europe" members are proposing to impose new rules and serious restrictions that would render their East European counterparts uncompetitive on the transport market (the so called Mobility One Package), the West European companies are already taking advantage.
For some time the windows of the trucks coming from East Europe currently resting on parking lots around Belgium, France and Germany, are being covered in leaflets, urging those drivers to move to work in West European transport companies. The campaign has been going on for quite some time now, and you'd say it's got nothing to do with the proposed new legislation. Only, now that Macron has made his proposition, the campaign has gained even more momentum.
Aside from that, it's exactly in the context of the proposed new regulation and the subsequent protests here against it, that these leaflets are gaining a whole new meaning. Indeed, everyone is free to attract employees in whatever way they see fit, as long as it's within the law. However, one can't help noticing that these job ads quite neatly fit exactly into all those conditions against which the Western transport companies are protesting, and which French president Macron calls "social dumping".
The truck drivers are being offered jobs, and in the case of Yusen Logistics, a permanent contract at the East European branch of the company - which is still better than outright stealing those workers into West Europe. In the latter case, their job would nominally remain here, and it's unlikely their foreign employer would want to send them on trips to France or Belgium (they'd rather keep that work for their French and Belgian drivers). This way the company would spare the cost of all the social insurance (which is way more expensive in France and Belgium), and they'll be paying much less of the due yearly leave time to their potential local employees. You know, that's the whole idea of outsourcing: cutting the costs.
What's stranger is that companies like these are now lobbying with Macron for a regulation that would have their East European counterparts force their drivers to spend two weekends at the company headquarters, where they could use the accommodation premises for rest - in other words, global companies like Yusen Logistics will be able to offer their drivers to rest not at hotels or motels like the regulation officially stipulates, but practically at their office (which, among other things, serves as a warehouse). Also, these companies would have to grant at least four flight tickets to all their employees, so they could return to their country of origin at least once in three months.
That's what the East European companies are being accused of, and what has likely triggered this legislative offensive: the East Europeans pay less to their employees, they allow them to sleep in their trucks while on the road, and they have lower requirements overall, which cuts their costs and makes them more competitive, hence dominant on the transport market. But the case of Yusen Logistics and other similar companies is evidence that sending East European employees to West Europe is really much more frequently practiced by large international companies, not the small East European speditors who can't afford all the expense anyway. And this means that the new legislation the EU is about to adopt (because the first vote was won 2-to-1 by the pro-Macron, Old Europe camp, as one might've expected), is simply aiming to make West European companies more attractive for East European employees. And paradoxically, that'll hardly help the West European workers in the transport sector! The only ones it'll benefit are the large West European transport companies. Not their employees.
East Europeans are not stupid. They're also very sensitive about exploitation, because they've endured it for half a century at the hands of another dominant power (this one was in the east instead of the west). Our transport workers have seen the true purpose behind this move, and they've recognized the threat. The proposal really aims to solve the problem that West European companies are having with the workforce shortage, by compensating with cheap (and skillful) labor from the east. At the expense of the East European economies - you know, the ones that the EU claims to want to support and integrate.
And that is why some people are turning their back to the idea of a united Europe. Because with attitude like this, all claims of political solidarity, fair trade, and even standards for all, go right out the drain - and all the hypocrisy of the big players in the West instantly comes to the fore. It's cases like these that can make an otherwise positively predisposed, generally pro-European guy like myself, start to have second thoughts. And I assure you I'm not alone.
So don't be so shocked next time another EU member country ends up with an Euroskeptic government - like Italy just did.
See, when people argue that the EU is something like the USSR, where the strong of the day drop down decisions upon the small and weak and prey on them, I tend to take that with some skepticism. But I'm beginning to see their point when guys like Macron try to sell their plans to defend the interests of the French transport companies at the expense of the East European ones, as if it's some kind of effort in favor of "law and order". It certainly isn't helping Europe as a whole, because, well, didn't you say you don't want all those migrants coming to your shores? So why take measures that would ultimately force thousands of truck drivers to relocate to French companies, then? Doesn't make sense.
Mind you, this proposed regulation would also significantly affect river transport on the Danube, and force dozens of East European companies to sail under non-EU flags (to avoid the regulation). Some non-EU countries like Ukraine, Serbia and Moldova have already taken advantage of the situation, taking the business out of Romanian, Bulgarian and other EU-member-state counterparts who would fall under the regulation. So now we're ending up in a situation where valuable tax resource is being drained off the EU budget - and for what? Because some guy called Macron wanted to take a populist measure and polish his image back home in the wake of the socially unpopular reforms he's been undertaking.
This is how Euroskepticism gets fueled. And I assure you it doesn't take a lot of effort to achieve that particularly in East Europe - just look at what's happening in Poland and Hungary! And Italy too.
Essentially, the situation is as follows. While the European Commission and some of the "Old Europe" members are proposing to impose new rules and serious restrictions that would render their East European counterparts uncompetitive on the transport market (the so called Mobility One Package), the West European companies are already taking advantage.
For some time the windows of the trucks coming from East Europe currently resting on parking lots around Belgium, France and Germany, are being covered in leaflets, urging those drivers to move to work in West European transport companies. The campaign has been going on for quite some time now, and you'd say it's got nothing to do with the proposed new legislation. Only, now that Macron has made his proposition, the campaign has gained even more momentum.
Aside from that, it's exactly in the context of the proposed new regulation and the subsequent protests here against it, that these leaflets are gaining a whole new meaning. Indeed, everyone is free to attract employees in whatever way they see fit, as long as it's within the law. However, one can't help noticing that these job ads quite neatly fit exactly into all those conditions against which the Western transport companies are protesting, and which French president Macron calls "social dumping".
The truck drivers are being offered jobs, and in the case of Yusen Logistics, a permanent contract at the East European branch of the company - which is still better than outright stealing those workers into West Europe. In the latter case, their job would nominally remain here, and it's unlikely their foreign employer would want to send them on trips to France or Belgium (they'd rather keep that work for their French and Belgian drivers). This way the company would spare the cost of all the social insurance (which is way more expensive in France and Belgium), and they'll be paying much less of the due yearly leave time to their potential local employees. You know, that's the whole idea of outsourcing: cutting the costs.
What's stranger is that companies like these are now lobbying with Macron for a regulation that would have their East European counterparts force their drivers to spend two weekends at the company headquarters, where they could use the accommodation premises for rest - in other words, global companies like Yusen Logistics will be able to offer their drivers to rest not at hotels or motels like the regulation officially stipulates, but practically at their office (which, among other things, serves as a warehouse). Also, these companies would have to grant at least four flight tickets to all their employees, so they could return to their country of origin at least once in three months.
That's what the East European companies are being accused of, and what has likely triggered this legislative offensive: the East Europeans pay less to their employees, they allow them to sleep in their trucks while on the road, and they have lower requirements overall, which cuts their costs and makes them more competitive, hence dominant on the transport market. But the case of Yusen Logistics and other similar companies is evidence that sending East European employees to West Europe is really much more frequently practiced by large international companies, not the small East European speditors who can't afford all the expense anyway. And this means that the new legislation the EU is about to adopt (because the first vote was won 2-to-1 by the pro-Macron, Old Europe camp, as one might've expected), is simply aiming to make West European companies more attractive for East European employees. And paradoxically, that'll hardly help the West European workers in the transport sector! The only ones it'll benefit are the large West European transport companies. Not their employees.
East Europeans are not stupid. They're also very sensitive about exploitation, because they've endured it for half a century at the hands of another dominant power (this one was in the east instead of the west). Our transport workers have seen the true purpose behind this move, and they've recognized the threat. The proposal really aims to solve the problem that West European companies are having with the workforce shortage, by compensating with cheap (and skillful) labor from the east. At the expense of the East European economies - you know, the ones that the EU claims to want to support and integrate.
And that is why some people are turning their back to the idea of a united Europe. Because with attitude like this, all claims of political solidarity, fair trade, and even standards for all, go right out the drain - and all the hypocrisy of the big players in the West instantly comes to the fore. It's cases like these that can make an otherwise positively predisposed, generally pro-European guy like myself, start to have second thoughts. And I assure you I'm not alone.
So don't be so shocked next time another EU member country ends up with an Euroskeptic government - like Italy just did.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 08:04 (UTC)This is clearly some major arms-twisting attempt from Macron. And like you said, it'll steal more jobs from his own constituents and hand them over to East Europeans who never even planned to move west in the first place. So I'm not seeing this passing any time soon.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 08:05 (UTC)Nevertheless, it has already passed the first hurdle at the European Commission.
(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 08:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 12:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 12:55 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 12:56 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 22/5/18 12:56 (UTC)