Lambert on the EU services directive

Question: What do you think the Commission is trying to achieve with the services directorate?

Jean Lambert: What the commission is actually trying to do with this is to mow down what they see as barriers between services moving across borders and the rationale for it is that services are increasingly the employment trend of the future therefore we should be encouraging employment because we have got high unemployment levels in a number of EU countries and it is far too time consuming to work through looking at individual barriers between particular countries and trying to find a harmonised agreement on what we should do. And therefore they will say – like they did with pesticides - that if it's legal in one country it will be legal in another and if you want to offer services across boarders you should be able to do that without having to go through the rigmarole of serving up a business in another member state.

Depending on who you listen to it is the difference between a million jobs, an increase in one per cent in GDP, or whatever, there is a difference in the figures. The problems I have with it and a lot of other people have with it is that it's so broad that it's not really distinguishing between which services it wants to open up.

So things you would consider classic social services, health care and to some extent education, and social care, what would be called in European jargon services of general interest - not so "public" anymore – they get caught in it. Because you've got this country of origin principle that says we work on the legal system of the country of which that business has its formal HQ, if it's not fully setting up cross-border but simply offering services cross-boarder, the legal system that applies is the legal system of where its based.

So if you get in an argument with a service provider you may discover its not the consumer laws of your own country which apply, you might have to come to grips with the consumer laws in Germany, Latvia or wherever. So its pushing the responsibility away from governments in the widest sense, including the European Union, to set the framework in which businesses operate and basically says to the consumer - you bought it, you sort it out.

Question: But is this not a natural extension of the EU's free market of goods and labour?
 
Jean Lambert: Some of the opposition isn't coming just because people don't want to see cross-border provision because actually in some places it makes perfect sense, if your nearest travel agent is over the border in France, in a lot of places it makes perfect sense logically. It's a question of what the legal system is in which you are operating and what the security is for the people who are employed by those companies, and so on.

And what we've discovered is that as we've gone on with this particular directive more and more things seem to come to light that the Commission hadn't realised were in there. There was a case where someone from the university sector reading through it, and thinking – 'it covers us' because we provide qualifications, but the Commission said it doesn't apply to universities, but they say this is what it says and this is what we do, so therefore we are covered. 

And there are many examples of this where different organisations go to the commission and say what does it mean? And you don't get a clear answer. The health sector is an absolute classic. A hearing in parliament had over a thousand people attending, the health sector was an issue looked at, we heard from the trade unions and a service provider in Sweden who thought this was going to open up the health service, but the Commission said "don't worry because the health sector is confined by this article etc"... So if the commission is right and it means no change then why have you put health in there and if it means a lot of change why can't health have a separate directive so we really know what we are doing.

Question: So you are not against the directive per se?
 
Jean Lambert: I want to see a new directive brought back that's thought through and where they are doing separate things in some of the big sectors such as health, so its really clear what it is we are trying to do rather than having huge changes by us.

Question: Are you not fairly limited on what you can do as an MEP and as a parliament?
 
Jean Lambert: It's a co-decision on this so that means we aren't just consulted on it we are co-legislators and therefore if parliament doesn't like the agreement we come to then it doesn't go through and certainly it won't get through without major amendment. And Council is already coming to realise that the British government, who have been so enthusiastic supporters, is saying maybe health shouldn't be in there and you begin to hear this from a lot of other governments that they are concerned this legislation isn't as good as it should be and needs some serious re-working.

Lambert on the economy and the environment

Question: But hasn't the Commission president said economic growth has got to come above social and environmental protection?

Jean Lambert: You can challenge the assumption. This is really old politics – throwing out the original Lisbon agenda of just five years ago, if you go hell for leather for growth and you don't count the cost of the environment and don't count social cost and just assume you can clear it up later, we are still paying for the consequences of that from the 19th century.

One thing parliament has to do is challenge that, come forward with the figures that show that eco-innovation could be a real job creator, if you aren't thinking seriously about the environment, how can you do eco-innovation, if you are saying you don't have to bother too much about the environment - its such old fashioned political thinking, I thought the EU had moved beyond that and certainly the last commission would never have come out with that sort of stand.
 
Question: What do you make of Tony Blair using his G8 presidency to tackle climate change but then saying as EU president that economic growth must come first?

Jean Lambert: I don't think there is a logic, I think what governments have tried to do for a long time is try to ride both horses and at some point you come up against a tree and it hurts. So he really needs to sort out what he wants to do.

If you really want to deal with issues around global poverty and climate change you cannot do that on the old growth agenda because that's part of the problem and unless he's really going to think through what measures he wants to see in terms of tackling climate change rather that simply saying what are the next set of targets, he's going to hit problems because at the moment the EU and the UK don't have a serious training strategy for how they are going to introduce new ideas into the world of work. 

We cannot meet our climate change targets unless we train the electricians, the plumbers, the builders to install solar panels, build eco efficient house and maintain them. We haven't even got that far so in the UK we have signed up for higher targets and we are still not looking at what we have to do even with the workforce.

Question: Would you take short-term economic pain in exchange for environmental protection?

Jean Lambert: I think it depends who the pain hits. If it hits the higher taxes for the better off then that is a pain worth going through and I would be one of those hit probably on my salary.

If it means increased wage squeezes and squeezes on social security systems which is hitting those people at the lower then that's a difficult trade off because that simply means you're prolonging a different set of problems because he also has poverty targets to meet and he can't do that by squeezing social security. Increasingly if you look at countries that have managed to do environmental development, social cohesion and economic well-being, it's those countries that have the higher taxation systems and where wealth is redistributed - like the Scandinavian countries - that's where he needs to be looking.

GDP growth is not growth for everyone, its almost virtual growth. There's an assumption that if your economy grows then everyone is better off well its not. The UK still has one of the biggest gaps between rich and poor of any of the developed nations and it’s a question of what you do with that GDP and you can see if you've got Costa Rica as an example, which on one per cent growth can actually do more to combat poverty than we do with a higher level of growth.

It's not how much you're growing but what you are doing with it and also what it is you are trying to make grow and this is one of the big criticisms the Greens have with the Barrosso programme, that's its very unclear which parts of the economy he really wants to encourage and which parts he really thinks have had their day. Its indiscriminate growth and I thought we'd learned the lesson that indiscriminate growth is not necessarily beneficial overall.

Lambert on the Green Party conference

Question: What is your key conference objective?
 
Jean Lambert: The single key objective is some very good general election results in key target seats and increase the share of the vote. It's a bit of both, in terms of the number of candidates we have standing etc, but its also that there are a number of seats this time round where we are looking at really raising the percentage of the vote we get there so we can really look at winning them in the next election or the one after.

Question: Is Brighton Pavilion your best chance of winning?
 
Jean Lambert: Brighton Pavilion is one, but there are other places where suddenly we are seeing the Greens more in favour of competition than we have seen it for quite some time - in terms of it would be nice if it was Brighton Pavilion, but also what about Lewisham or wherever.

Question: Is it now realistic to expect a Green MP under first past the post?

Jean Lambert: I do, there was a time where I thought we would have to wait for PR but I think we've got to the point now where I think we could do it under FPTP, if we have the momentum going and the right candidate in the right place then why not?

Question: Has the party changed in last few years in terms of its professionalism and strategy?

Jean Lambert: Well I certainly think the fact that getting people elected to the European parliament and then to the London assembly has made people see that we can do it and also at the local level as well where we now have a number or places in the country where we may have three, four, six and growing local councillors. Whereas those of us that have been in the party a long time can remember how difficult it was to get Greens elected, we managed our first one in 1974 and then didn't mange another one for quite a few years after that. So I think we are beginning to get the ideas that we can win and it's a very positive thing because you can make changes, you can make things happen even with a small number of you. 

Question: Would you see the next stage of party's development as reforming the internal structures and having an individual leader?

Jean Lambert: I was involved in the last internal reorganisation of the party and that took a lot of work. But it's interesting now there's much more momentum towards an individual leader.

I'm still a sceptic on that. I'm not too keen on the idea that all your hopes come down on one person. I think you need to look very carefully at how you allocate power but in terms of having a single spokesperson for the party then I think that's something which will come soon, there's a real movement behind that now.

Question: Is there a difference between a single spokesperson and a party leader in the public's eye?

Jean Lambert: This is what the media keep telling us - but where we are very clear as a party is that you don't put the decision making power in the hands of the person who is your spokesperson. I think that's a lesson you can learn from other political parties because what then happens is you think you can revitalise your party simply by removing your leader whereas you often have problems that run a lot deeper.

I think this is a problem the Conservatives are now finding, that simply changing your leader isn't enough. It's a question of how your party moves, even if you go for a single spokesperson out there you have to remember that what really counts is the strength of the party.