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EEC measures would also require publication of the
accounts of private companies, and would lay down the
information about the company's affairs which had to
be disclosed in them. Although rules of company law
are not normally of direct concern to workers, all these
rules are, since they will go far to give unions the
information they need for collective bargaining.
Worker participation in management
Other EEC measures require two-tier management,
with worker representation in the upper, supervisory
tier, and for works councils with rights to be consulted
and powers of veto over various matters. None of these
exist under present Irish law. It was up to Irish trade
unions to decide whether they wanted these rights, and
if so on what basis.
"Industrial democracy" is a relatively unfamiliar idea
in Ireland, and much that has been said about it is
vague and not clearly thought out. It involved obli-
gatory consultation between workers and management,
joint decision making, workers' rights to initiate pro-
posals and to obtain information, at plant and shop
floor level, executive level, and supervisory manage-
ment level—or it could involve only some of these
things, depending on the exact terms of the EEC
measures when adopted.
Numerous important legal questions were raised by
the draft EEC proposals, and if not answered would
have to be resolved by national laws or by the Courts.
Would the workers' representatives be part time or full-
time, temporary or permanent? How far would they be
subject to the workers instructions and how far bound
to report back? Would they have the same rights as
other supervisory board members to get financial and
other information about the company's affairs, and
would they have the right to have their own financial
advisers examine the company's books for them? How
would they be trained, and how paid? What rights
would they have to information on pricing and expense
accounts, and on information which would be useful in
making wage claims? Would they have a right to find
out the ownership and control of the company—which
even directors have not got under existing law?
Mr. Temple Lang said he was not trying to answer
these questions, but only to raise them as typical of
the kinds of issues raised by the process of harmonisa-
tion of laws in the EEC. These issues should not be
discussed and settled only by specialists in company
law or EEC law : they affected everyone, and they need
detailed public discussion and analysis. The legal
revolution which the EEC could bring about was not
just a matter for lawyers, and lawyers advising the
EEC Commission or the Irish Department of Industry
and Commerce could not advise satisfactorily on tech-
nical questions arising out of EEC measures if there had
not been sufficient public discussion of the big issues,
none of them purely legal, which were involved. Trade
unions and others should think a lot more than they
seem to have done so far about the questions involved
if the legal changes resulting from the EEC were to be
the kind of changes they wanted.
TOP E.E.C. LAW POST FOR IRISHMAN
Dermot J. Devine who is son of retired Chief Garda
Superintendent, Joseph and Dr. Ita Devine, Ardagh
Court, Athlone, has been appointed Head of the
Department of International Law at the EEC Head-
quarters, a post which he will take up in September.
After qualifying as a solicitor in 1956 .he practiced
in Athlone for four years before taking up the post of
Registrar in the Supreme Court, Naroibi in 1960.
In 1964 he was appointed lecturer in Law to the
University of Capetown, a post he has held to date.
He obtained his L.L.B. at the University of Pretoria
and was awarded the Honours Degree Cum Laude. He
was conferred with the degree of L.L.D. at Capetown
University in June this year. His thesis was an exten-
sive work on international law.
Dermot received his secondary education at the
Marist College, Athlone and Clongowes Wood College
and took his first L.L.B. degree at U.C.D., taking first
place and first-class honours.
In the Incorporated Law Society's Intermediate
Examinations, he took first place, with honours and
also won the centenary medal. In his final solicitors'
examination he took second place with honours and
silver medal.
He is 37 years old and is brother-in-law of Senator
Brian Lenihan, the former Minister for Foreign Affairs.
NEW PROPOSALS ON EEC RECOGNITION
Professional men and women, such as lawyers, doctors
and architects, are supposed to be able to practise
freely anywhere in the European Economic Community.
But this freedom of establishment has remained vir-
tually stillborn—largely because national professional
bodies themselves have disagreed on conditions for the
mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas. No Ger-
man dentist will try to practise in France, for example,
if his qualifications are not recognised, and he has to
train a second time.
In other words, the Nine have to work out an
"equivalence" between an engineer who qualified after
three years at university followed by a two-year prac-
tical course and one whose diploma is based on four
years' study at a technical institute.
Since 1967 the Commission has made 40 proposals
for the mutual recognition of diplomas for ten pro-
fessions, including architects, accountants, nurses, doc-
tors, chemists and lawyers. Member governments have
not accepted one of them. The proposals generally
sought to set minimum standards and length of educa-
tion. In the enlarged Community the problem is likely
to be even harder, mainly because of the greater auto-
nomy exercised by professional bodies in Britain.
Now a new approach has come from the Commis-
sioner in charge, Ralf Dahrendorf. In his view, the
Commission should look at what degrees and diplomas
qualify one to do, not at how they were obtained.
To avoid the impression that the Eurocrats would be
imposing rules on the professions, he advocates a series
of public hearings at each of which representatives of a
given profession could state their viewpoint. This would
be an innovation in the Community's law-making pro-
cess.
191
Herr Dahrendorf also suggests that European educa-
tional passports be issued to those whose qualifications
entitled them to study or practise freely anywhere in
the Nine.
—European Community,
July/August 1973