WHAT if an Airbus was winging its way to Britain carrying a cargo of efficient, energetic and polite Polish plumbers, all keen to mend your leaky tap for a reasonable fee.

Hard on their heels would be Latvian electricians, Czech architects and Hungarian civil engineers, desperate to redesign and rebuild your personal space. A French catering firm, based in Calais, might run your office canteen.

It could be a householder’s dream but it will never come to pass because President Chirac, Chancellor Schröder and almost every other leader of “old Europe” wants to nip this notion in the bud.

The idea they do not like is the EU Services Directive, a piece of draft legislation that sounds as dull as drains (and ought to be) but is creating a furore as debate moves to the European Parliament. Minds on the Left and Right from Berlin to Bordeaux are meeting in sordid collusion against the simple idea that a Belgian glazier should be allowed to ply his trade freely in France without setting up shop there.

Germany wants the legislation withdrawn without further debate. Michel Barnier, the French Foreign Minister, condemned “social dumping”, his outrage almost eclipsing the French right-wing deputy, Philippe de Villiers of Mouvement pour la France. Better known for his hysterical tirades against Turkish membership of the EU, M de Villiers railed against a law that “would permit a Polish plumber to work in France with the salary and employment protection of his own country ”.

Once can imagine the delight of Mme Dupont, driven to distraction by the leaky tap in her kitchen, at the arrival of Lech, the Polish plumber. No one asks the obvious question as to why this notional Pole would travel so far just to earn a Polish salary.

Lech makes the journey because there is demand in France for his skills and because Mme Dupont will pay more. If that is controversial, it is because European politicians are, once again, revealing their contempt for the EU’s founding principle of a single market.

The Services Directive, a legacy of the last Commission under Romano Prodi, is about making Europe work. It is about opening doors in a market that accounts for 70 per cent of the economy and the jobs in the EU.

The European Community created a customs union for goods and it works, but few Europeans still make things. Most of us earn our living by providing services, physical or intellectual. However, selling services across borders involves a nightmare of national rules and regulations, permits and licences, all intended to frustrate foreign competitors.

The directive seeks to end the protectionist charade with a country of origin principle — a service provider is governed by the laws of his country of origin when he works in another EU state if he is not established there. Lech’s plumbing firm will be governed by Polish law, even as he unblocks a drain in Dijon. Hence, the outcry about social dumping — the Polish plumbers, some say, will work at rates below the Smic, France’s minimum wage. Not so, says the Commission, because in the case of seconded workers, the Services Directive defers to an existing EU law, the Posted Workers Directive, which compels a company sending workers to another EU state to comply with minimum wage and other standards on health, safety and hygiene.

So, Lech will get the Smic and a lot more but he might come in just a bit cheaper than Jacques down the road, who charges €50 to get out of bed.

Britain is largely in favour of the directive but has grumbling reservations about essential services, such as health, which apparently must be regulated by us, and, of course, tax.

The big fear in Western Europe is the rapid relocation of businesses to Central and Eastern Europe where a swath of accession states have adopted very low company tax rates. So it will be Pete’s Polish Plumbers, registered in KraKow and servicing building sites and homes from Glasgow to Nice.

Why not? The threat would at least keep a lid on our Chancellor’s tax ambitions. And has Britain really got higher standards of health and hygiene than other EU countries? Would an army of Hungarian doctors and nurses really leave our wards more dangerous than do the present incumbents? So violent has been reaction against this directive that Charlie McReevy, the Internal Markets Commissioner, threw up his hands in surrender, agreeing that the directive “will not fly” without amendments to the country of origin clause.

It is all deeply depressing. Europe’s only hope of creating jobs is to open the door to a services free-for-all but the old mafias are powerful. José Manuel Barroso, President of the Commission, said as much: “Some people think the European Commision is there to protect the 15 against the new 10. It is not. It is there to promote the general interest of Europe.”

carl.mortished@thetimes.co.uk

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