No end in sight to education ‘scandal’

Foreign lecturers are still battling to get what they are owed.

Reading the complexities of Staffan Nilsson and Martin Westlake’s excellent article (“Bringing citizens closer to the EU”, 11-17 November) might lead people to believe that the citizens of Europe are unaware of how much they need Europe, hence their political non-engagement.

Foreign lecturers – lettori – from all over the EU working in Italian universities have been engaged with the EU’s institutions, leading to countless meetings with the European Commission, seven judgements in the European Court of Justice and four resolutions in the European Parliament, and yet they remain denied their treaty rights.

On 28 October, we provided David Lidington, the UK’s minister for Europe, with a sample of 33 lettori showing how they have been in litigation for two decades and yet are still obliged to sue for increments for years of service and full pension entitlements.

Some have died without ever having been compensated; others fear the same fate.

Eurosceptics will argue that we are foolish to put so much faith and energy into the European project.

We, who are model citizens by Nilsson and Westlake’s criteria, challenge the Council of Ministers to prove the Eurosceptics wrong by putting right what a former MEP, the late Sir Neil MacCormick QC, called “one of Europe’s greatest scandals”.

From:

David Petrie

Chairman, ALLSI (Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy)

Verona