European Federation of Public Service Unions

(23 May 2013) Tax justice should be on the agenda of the joint meeting between the leadership of the European Union and Russia. That is the message EPSU sent to the Presidents of the Russia, the Duma, the European Parliament and Council, and the European Commission. Both in the EU and in Russia, every year gigantesque amounts of funding are lost as companies and the wealthy engage in tax avoidance, tax evasion and fraudulent activities, often by using tax havens. Well resourced tax (...)

European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) Press Communication – 13 May 2013 (13 May 2013) A new study for EPSU finds that after 15 years of experimenting with the EU internal market for electricity and gas its inherent flaws are not addressed. The study comes as the European Parliament will be voting on the Jerzy Buzek (Polish conservative MEP) report later in May. His draft report is uncritically in favour of the internal market for electricity and gas as is the European (...)

Press communication - Brussels, May 6 The first up and running European Citizens Initiative (ECI) – Water is a Human Right – has collected over 1.5 million signatures across Europe, and continues counting. 8 countries have passed the minimum number of signatures required. These countries are: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Slovenia. (...)

(6 May 2013) EPSU condemns the one-sided measures announced by the Portuguese government this weekend. The measures hit public service workers and working families hard. 30.000 public service jobs will be cut. Civil servants will have to work 40 hours a week instead of 35, thus seeing a sharp fall in pay and worsening of working conditions. Workers will only get a full pension at the age of 66. The measures do nothing to address the recession in Portugal which sees its economy shrinking (...)

(26 April 2013) The ETUC Executive Committee adopted a position on the social dimension of the European Union 23 April. It is the contribution of the ETUC to the discussions between the Parliament, Commission and Council (Member States) on the future of the European Union. Our priorities are therefore to: Stop cuts in public spending, social protection and wages. They are unfair, they increase unemployment, inequalities and poverty and they worsen recession. Stop competition on wage (...)