International press release
www.nejtilleu.se
2008-11-21

After a 24-hour debate the members of the Swedish Parliament said yes to the Lisbon Treaty in the late evening of 20 November. 243 members voted yes to the Treaty, 39 voted against, 13 did not vote and 54 were not present. According to the Swedish constitutional legislation a vote of 1/6 of the members present could have blocked and postponed the ratification for a year, which means at least 49 votes. Thus if the 8 social democrats (among them two former ministers Morgan Johansson and Leif Pagrotsky and a newspaper editor Bo Bernardsson) and two of the five members from the government parties had voted with the Left Party and Green Party members, the ratification would have been postponed. The only real democrat from the establishment parties in the voting was Sven Bergström from the centrist party, who voted no together with the Left and Green members.

In fact the social democrat party had the power to stop the ratification. The Fredrik Reinfeld rightwing-government were dependent of the 130 social democrats votes in the Parliament to get the ratification through. After party banning in the final vote the “opposition” social democrat sadly put down their votes or were not present.

READ MORE !!

The debate in the Parliament was were much focused on what will happen with the Swedish labour rights and the collective bargaining model after the judgment of the ECJ, and especially the effects of the Laval case on the Swedish labour market. The government party representatives falsely claimed that there is no connection at all between the Lisbon Treaty and the ECJ judgements. The labour politics spokesman of the social democrat Sven-Olof Österberg had to admit that the worries about the judgements in the trade union movement were justified, but then lined up with the government falsely position. Österberg also declared that the social democrat would support the government ratification law as the Treaty would facilitate “to found a better and more democratic Europe”, which would also stimulate the enlargement process.

After the arguments of improving the posted directive and the ETUC social protocol had been dismissed in the general debate before the parliament decision leading social democrats, like the LO and ETUC president Wanja Lundby-Wedin and the party leader Mona Sahlin, referred to the magics of safe guarding the Swedish labour rights when the Social Charter would become a part of the EU constitutional treaties, even if the Commissioner Margot Wallström since long had refuted this argument.

But at the beginning of these week the argument was further repealed. In an interview in the Municipal and Workers Union paper Kommunalarbetaren the Swedish ECJ judge Pernilla Lindh declared that the Court had already referred to the Charter 11 times, and one of them was the Laval judgement. She said “It plays an important role for the ECJ judgments. As I see the Charter is already today binding. The difference if it is written in the Treaty would be that you get it on blank paper that the Charter is binding. But, it would not be any practical difference of the ECJ’s judgments compared to the present situation”.

The parliament vote also meant that the social democrats did not respect the LO Congress decision in June of demanding absolute guarantees of safeguarding the Swedish collective bargaining model and the right to take strike action. The government committee, the Stråth committee, which would look into if the posted directive and the Swedish Law to take strike actions against wage dumpings (Britannica) could be adjusted to the EU legislation, will be presented on 15th of December. Therefore in the last months many trade union organisations and local and intermediate level, as well as the nation Building and Construction and Transport unions, had taken statements to postpone the treatment in Parliament until the Stråth proposal had been presented and discussed.

The voting in the parliament was preceded by intensive discussion in the trade union movement, especially in Building and Construction and Transport unions. A big national trade union demonstration was planned for Saturday 15th of November, but after LO leadership manipulations this demonstration was reduced to a 30-minutes manifestation at a central square in Stockholm this Tuesday. In the rainy evening the two speakers were the president of the Estonian TUC, Harri Taliga, and the ETUC president Wanja Lundby-Wedin. Lundby-Wedin blamed all problems of the Swedish welfare model including the collective bargaining model on the Fredrik Reinfeld government, and did not mention the Lisbon Treaty with a single word in front of the some 800 participants. A majority of the posters were saying No to the Lisbon Treaty and/or Respect the Irish Vote.

Instead of a demonstration, an on the street meeting in the Stockholm city was held last Saturday with speech by Eva-Britt Svensson, EU parliamentarian of the Left Party, Nils Lundgren, former president of the June List and EU-parlamentarian, Peter Lilja from the June List and the IF Metal trade union among others. Jan-Erik Gustafsson presented a solidarity statement from the TEEU trade union and the People’s movement. Also a lot of tracts and information material was distributed.

During all the campaign for a No to the treaty the national media has been almost quiet, and only a couple of the regional media editorials have argued for a referendum. In the last week before the voting articles by EU-critics increased substantially in regional and local media, which put the parliamentarians under some pressure. In the last three months the People’s Movement No to the EU have e-mailed 12 open letters to the 130 social democrat parliamentarians asking them to vote no or at least postpone the ratification. These letters have also been widely distributed to the trade unions at regional level.

Even though the voting yesterday did not become a half victory many trade unions and other citizens have become aware of the ECJ judgements and of the supranational content of the Lisbon Treaty. And the still the treaty has not yet passed. It rests the vote of the Czech parliament and a possible new referendum in Ireland. And nobody can predict how the growing financial and economic crisis will develop to which the neo-liberal Lisbon Treaty will give no help. For us in Sweden and elsewhere the task would be to continue to organize the increasing awareness and resistance against the ECJ judgments and the Lisbon Treaty for future victories.

People’s movement “No to the EU” Jan-Erik Gustafsson, President