IN FOOTBALL two yellow cards are enough to get a player sent off. But in the European Union three may pass with nary a word. Under the EU’s “yellow card” system, if one-third of the union’s national parliaments think that a proposed law tampers with matters better handled nationally, they can force the European Commission to reconsider it. Before this year parliaments had issued two yellow cards, once against a law limiting workers’ right to strike and once against establishing an EU-wide prosecutor’s office. The commission rejected the card both times (though it withdrew the strike law for other reasons).
This week the commission made it a hat-trick. In March, ten central and eastern European countries (plus Denmark) yellow-carded a directive that would force firms that post employees to work in other EU countries to match local pay and conditions, rather than simply paying the minimum wage. The easterners said this undermined their ability to set wages themselves, and would kill jobs. But on July 20th Marianne Thyssen, the employment commissioner, said the directive would remain unchanged. The easterners, already annoyed off with the commission…
