This group’s proposals pose considerable risks to Social Europe. Their starting point is that European business is being strangled by too much regulation. Although the exercise is termed “better regulation” – which the ETUC would support at face value – the real agenda is a bonfire of regulations. The Commission’s intention is to cover 13 sectors including cohesion policy, financial services, company law, environment, and, of course, labour law. The ETUC regrets the lack of transparency of the procedure and questions the quantitative objective of 25 per cent reduction of the so-called administrative burden.

John Monks, ETUC General Secretary said: “Some in the Commission and its periphery are proceeding as though the financial crisis has not happened, as if new relations between state and market are not necessary. It has been widely recognised that the financial sector needs greater regulation to avoid future similar crises. Politics must reassert their primacy over markets. The Commission is going down the wrong track.”