UK Class 66, DB Schenker - CC / Flickr
The PES was kind enough to e-mail me a copy of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s open letter to the European Liberals (whose campaign launched today) where Rasmussen calls into question the Liberals’ statement that “The single market should be reinforced and extended in energy, postal services, railways and health care”. The full letter is available at the LME-LSE website here.
The letter goes on: “Our question is: how do you propose to use the single market to ensure these services remain high-quality, affordable and accessible to all?”
All very well – managing to guarantee high quality, affordable and accessible public services is exactly the sort of thing the PES should want. But there are two fundamental misconceptions here: firstly that public services are necessarily good at the moment, and secondly that market forces necessarily challenge the public service ethos. The letter is intentionally vague about private enterprise: liberalisation does not necessarily mean privatisation.
