For decades the focus has been procedural – the way decisions are made in an expanding union; the delineation of competences between institutions – and, more recently, financial: the operation of the single currency.
But Mitzi Grasso, the president of the Police Protective League, the police officers' union, said the issue was competence, plain and simple.
In a 2000 Green Paper, the Commission continued to emphasise the need to diversify supplies, offering a warning that 'the Union suffers from having no competence and no community cohesion in energy matters' (European Commission, 2000: 28), highlighting that external energy dependence was increasing from 50percentnt in 1999 to a projected 70percentnt in 2030.
The competence of the moribund union's past leadership rivaled Italy's, and the new union chief, Karen Lewis, must somehow galvanize members over an issue, perhaps preserving their pensions.
This change "does not increase the competences" of the union, according to a draft of the summit conclusions — a sentence aimed at excluding the necessity for referendums.
Last year, 250 construction workers received £10 million after being secretly blacklisted by The Consulting Association, in a secret commercial list containing worker's names, political views, competences and trade union activities.
The Union's educational systems are the competence of the Member States, but a better-integrated European programme on education is very welcome.
Certain actors, such as nursing educators and unions, appear to have some policy competence, but are unable to overcome the weaknesses within the SANC and the NDoH, who bear ultimate responsibility for nursing policy development and implementation.
Working with trade unions: Because South Africa's health services depend on people, prioritize quality of care and health workers' competence while working with trade unions to improve working conditions and remuneration for health workers.
"Any competence not conferred on the union by the constitution rests with the member states," it says.
