Promoting and protecting public services in Europe
EPSU wants to see a European Union that recognizes and supports the role of public services in contributing to sustainable development and quality of life. In an increasingly integrated Europe it is important to tackle issues such as tax dumping and cut-throat competition, which put pressure on public services and concentrate increasing amounts of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Fair and progressive taxation, good governance and effective regulation are needed to guarantee quality public services for all.
With hundreds examples of people taking control of local public services, bringing public services back in public ownership is gaining momentum across the world. Coalitions of unions, social action groups, community organisations, academics and many others are successful in convincing people and politicians that private solutions to running public services are not the way forward.
left to right: Oliver Prausmueller, expert on trade issues at the Chamber of Labour Vienna (AK), Scott Sinclair, Director of the Trade and Investment Project, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), Penny Clarke, Deputy General Secretary EPSU
We should aim for “private sufficiency and public luxury”. These were opening remarks at the EPSU workshop on public services and trade, organised jointly with AK EUROPA, ÖGB Europabüro and ETUC on 19 November 2019 in Brussels.
Campaigning for the right to water, negotiating on information and consultation rights for central government workers, lobbying for tougher action on tax avoidance and fraud, standing up to multina
EPSU North East European Constituency meeting in Tallinn, 28-29 August 2019
Public debt crises happen more often than we think and including in developed countries. It means that a government can no longer service its debt payments.
Attacks on trade union rights, the growth of corporate power and capture of the state by these companies and the impact of privatisation were among the themes discussed at the regional conference for the InterAmericas of PSI.
Delegates at EPSU Congress June 2019, Dublin
EPSU has used the occasion of the annual public service day to highlight the work of public service workers to new members of the European Parliament.
Representatives of STAL and other trade unions are continuing their fight for the right to health as well as affordable and good quality care for public administration staff and their families in Portugal.
The Employment Committee adopted its position regarding the Commission’s proposal to improve transparency and predictability of working conditions for all European workers, 18 October.
Tripartite Social Summit, Brussels, 16 October 2018
Member States need to do more to implement the principles in the Pillar to deliver public services like health, elderly, child and long-term care, water and energy.
Over 60 participants, mainly affiliates from EPSU and the ETUCE education federation, met in Brussels on 8-9 October to debate the impact of the European Semester – the EU’s process of economic governance – on public services.
