Last month my son voted for the first time. We take voting seriously in the Reid household and Jack is no exception. He was a little disappointed that no one called to canvas him personally for his vote and a little confused that at least one of the major parties forgot to mention anything to do with Europe on their campaign literature. That confusion was minor compared with how he felt in the election hall faced with a long list of parties and candidates on a ballot paper nearly a metre long.
He was not alone in being confused. There appeared to be a multitude of candidates from similar sounding anti-European parties. As we were leaving he asked why there was not a box with “none of the above” – a very good idea which would allow the voter to spoil the ballot paper while expressing a clear choice.
The European elections threw up a surprising result for the Kinnocks. Glenys Kinnock resurfaced as UK Europe minister and a baroness to boot, joining her husband Neil, the former labour leader who is already a member of the house of Lords. While Lady Kinnock stood down from the European Parliament after nearly two decades, Marta Andreasen was successfully elected as an MEP for the UK Independence Party. Andreasen, Spanish by birth, is the former chief accountant of the European Commission who blew the whistle on the financial irregularities that have plagued the European institutions for decades. Many claim that she was harshly and unfairly treated for her whistleblowing.
Regardless of those claims, what is unquestionably true is that the commissioner responsible for internal personnel matters at the time and who was directly responsible for the treatment Andreasen received was Lord Kinnock. Expect fireworks from Andreasen in the coming years as she now has the authority of Parliament to challenge the financial incompetence of the European institutions.
What should concern HR professionals in the near future is the likelihood of any further attempts to reform current working time rules. Working time law revisions were one of the most hotly debated European subjects in the past 12 months, with real pressure to end the UK opt-out on the 48-hour week. UK labour MEPs voted against their own government’s position and jeopardised the UK opt-out in November. This issue has not gone away as the consequences of legal challenge remain for several member states other than the UK. Both the CIPD and CBI need to be asking Lady Kinnock whether the government remains as committed as before in defending the UK opt-out.
Of immediate concern will be the institutional wrangling that will determine offices and committee chairmanships of the European Parliament and Commission. Member states may have endorsed José Manuel Barroso for a second term as president of the European Commission, but the left-wing parties on the parliament who were roundly trounced at the recent elections are having none of it. By the end of this week we should know who will be the new chair of the European Parliament’s social affairs committee. My money is on Pervenche Berès, a French socialist and lifetime politician. Unheard of in HR circles, Berès was a very effective chair of the influential economic and monetary affairs committee in the last Parliament. Poor Barroso will need to wait till the autumn to be confirmed as Commission president.
It will be September before we have an idea who will be the next commissioner responsible for employment and social policy matters and early 2010 before we see their detailed work programme for the next five years. That may sound like a long time in the future. I assure readers that it will come alarmingly quickly. Worryingly, employment law reform may be one of the few areas where European politicians believe that there is an appetite for further legislation and harmonisation. Not good news for HR.