Transnationalism and the Theory of European Integration: Political Science Perspectives

Abstract

Tuesday, February 14, 2006, was a typical winter day in Strasbourg with mild rain and moderate temperatures. Yet the crowd that had gathered outside the European Parliament building was anything but typical: 50,000 demonstrators had heeded a call by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to protest against the European Commission’s proposal for a Services Directive. Two days ahead of a European Parliament vote on the directive, their speeches, banners, and sirens signaled an unequivocal ‘no’ — in various languages — to the European Commission’s plans. The rally in Strasbourg was the culmination of a months-long campaign, directed mainly against the ‘country of origin principle’ contained in the draft directive, a rule that would have allowed service providers from any European Union (EU) state to work elsewhere in the Union under their home country’s labor and safety standards. When the European Parliament passed its own version of the directive two days later, the ‘country of origin principle’ had been eliminated. ‘A major victory for European workers,’ boasted ETUC in a press release (2006b). John Monks, its General Secretary, declared, ‘Trade unions are a political force to be reckoned with’ (ETUC 2006a).