It is the EU’s duty to adopt a Wage Union, says international law expert

Article of Csaba Mohi, international law expert in Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet

Exercising a right laid out in the Treaty of Lisbon, Jobbik has launched a European Citizens’ Initiative for a Wage Union to invite the European Commission to eliminate the huge wage inequalities within the EU. Of all Hungarian political parties, Jobbik was the only one to exercise this guaranteed right. After evaluating Jobbik’s motion, the Commission judged it to be legitimate and registered it, considering the fact that the party had fulfilled the relevant EU requirements. Persistent lobbying activities helped the party to win all affected member states for the cause.

The EU Treaties require collecting at least one million statements of support from several member states so that the new mandatory EU legislation could be developed to eliminate the existing anomalies. The collection process has already started. Notably enough, the Orbán government rejects Jobbik’s proposal. Politicians in charge of economic and financial affairs have unanimously declared the concept to be “nonsense”. Below we provide an overview how the commission responsible for the execution of EU law violates certain provisions by ignoring them (even though they bind the commission) and failing to do anything for the elimination of the shocking wage inequalities between the EU’s western and eastern regions.

The wage inequalities between the Union’s rich and poor member states (i.e., the lack of a wage union) violate fundamental rights guaranteed by the European Union

and block the successful functioning of its economic-political institutions. The very first provisions of the EU Treaty include: “The Union shall have exclusive competence and be responsible for establishing such competition rules necessary for the functioning of the internal market that guarantee fair competition and prevent its distortion. The Union shall establish an internal market without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, services, persons, labour and capital is ensured.” The requirement of a “free competition without any distortion” first appears in the protocol (laying out equally binding provisions) attached to the Treaty of Lisbon, in order to guarantee the efficient functioning of the internal market. The protocol points out that the single internal market must be based on a practice that prevents any distortion of competition. Undoubtedly enough, the enormous wage inequalities currently existing between the member states exert a huge distortion effect. In the protocol, the member states unanimously assumed responsibility to make EU bodies (especially the Commission) adopt new mandatory regulations and measures to allow for the elimination of any factors blocking or distorting free competition, if need be. Jobbik’s proposal for a wage union wishes to exercise this fundamental right, and remedy this omission.

Among the EU’s declared objectives and fundamental functions,

the Treaty of Lisbon also lists “combating social exclusion and discrimination” and promoting “social market economy” as key elements of the European economic model.

These requirements were pinpointed by various organizations of EU citizens, claiming that “the Union is not social enough; it does not provide sufficient protection for workers; it promotes deregulation too much, thus serving monopolistic interests”. Listed among the “generally applicable provisions”, the guarantees related to the functioning of the internal market, the prevention of distorted competition as well as the social and labour law provisions were rendered into the competency of the Court of Justice of the European Union. So any lawsuit on this subject must be filed to this body, too.

Consequently, if Jobbik’s proposal for a wage union fails because the Commission rejects it, then the party can file a so-called “omission suit” before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Treaty of Lisbon provides that “if the European Parliament, the European Council or the European Commission omits mandatory decision making, thus violating the EU Treaties, member states, natural or legal persons may file a suit to the Court of Justice of the European Union to establish whether there was a violation of law”. As for the execution, the Treaty provides: “The institution whose omission is declared contrary to the Treaties by the Court of Justice of the European Union shall take the necessary measures to comply with the court decision.”

Even during the legislative work aiming to provide for the free movement of workers and capital, representative organizations, member states and economic politicians have all pointed out that if such free movement across the EU were allowed without eliminating the intolerable differences between the economic-social conditions and wage levels of certain member states, then workers would migrate to member states offering higher wages while capital would flow to EU countries with lower social and payroll costs. It is clear that the omissions caused by this short-sightedness have led to the largest crisis of the internal economic development of an integrated Europe so far. The wage union initiative aims to solve this crisis and it is supported by several Eastern European countries.