Were the Bolkestein draft European proposal to be adopted as it stands all the services provided within the EU25 would be considered to be ordinary economic products. This means that essential sectors such as culture, education, healthcare and all services relating to national welfare systems could be submitted to the same forms of competition as goods.

Such a development would inevitably lead to the deterioration of pension systems, social welfare or healthcare cover in favour of private systems. It would also result in the deregulation of our education systems and bring an end to any form of cultural diversity. The application of this directive would also call into question workers' rights as established by the national laws of the countries of the European Union.

Mr Barroso, as Commission President, gave the impression that the draft had been quietly dropped… this is far from the case: Bolkestein is making a come back. The fact is that the draft proposal is now being debated in parliament. The possibility of its rejection or withdrawal now seems to be off the agenda. Numerous amendments have been put forward in several of the European Parliament's commissions. It is therefore urgent that we join forces to put the Bolkestein draft proposal back on the agenda. All initiatives for achieving this aim are welcome!

There are two current initiatives:

1 - Alerting all our networks: transmitting the link to the petition to as many people as possible to encourage individual signatures and persuading new organisations (65 to date) to officially support it to bolster the electronic campaign!

2 - Sending our message to MEPs: sending a strong signal to our respective MEPs and above all targeting our emails at the leaders of the various political groups to make them aware of the petition's claims and the corresponding amendments. To do this you can send them an email directly based on the model below.

• For more information and electronic petition