Leaders of European transport workers have made a last-ditch appeal to EU heads of government, meeting at tomorrow's summit in Cologne, to postpone the abolition of duty-free.
The assistant general secretary of the Federation of Transport Workers in the EU (FST), Ms Brenda O'Brien, yesterday told a Brussels press conference that to allow the July 1st ending of dutyfree to proceed at a summit whose main purpose was employment would be an act of "total hypocrisy".
She insisted that even the Commission had admitted that 53,000 jobs were at risk, a contention hotly disputed by the Commission.
The FST puts the figure even higher, at closer to 100,000 of the 140,000 workers directly employed in the duty-free industry. A Swedish union official, Mr Pere Rollemark, told the press conference that some 700 Stena Line workers in Gothenburg were already on protective notice and would see their jobs disappear by September.
A delegation of Irish transport workers' leaders will this morning meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Ministers for Finance and Public Enterprise, Mr McCreevy and Ms O'Rourke, from whom they will find ready support but receive little comfort.
Mr McCreevy only last week in Brussels acknowledged that the prospects for a reprieve were now dismal.
The French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, has confirmed in letters to both the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and to the German presidency that he intends to raise the issue again in Cologne. He complains that the Commission has failed to honour its undertaking from the Vienna summit to prepare a successor regime.
But when finance ministers met here last week it was still clear that a significant number of member-states, led by the Danes, were adamantly opposed to reopening the issue. A unanimous decision on a proposal from the Commission would be needed to reverse the 1991 abolition decision. And even German proposals for a compromise, ending the VAT exemption but allowing a limited continuation of the excise duty exemption, have failed to muster new support.
The President of the Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, yesterday defended its role and insisted that he had no mandate to change his position at Cologne. He said the Commission had promised to look favourably at requests for assistance for regions that would be affected by the ending of the facility but had received no applications.
