The European Parliament was building a broad majority on Wednesday in support of a watered-down version of a fiercely disputed plan to open Europe's vast market in services to cross-border competition. Services make up more than 60 percent of the European Union economy but companies face many barriers when trying to operate outside their home country. The bill covers services as diverse as hairdressing, software engineering, plumbing and catering. The two main political groups in the assembly, the centre-right European People's Party and the socialists, stuck to a compromise deal last week to amend a core part of the services directive, despite last-minute wobbles on both sides. The smaller liberal group said it would also back the bill provided the compromise is tweaked at the vote. "I hope and I believe that we will reach an agreement on the services directive tomorrow which will command a clear majority in parliament and which will be surprisingly liberal," liberal floor leader Graham Watson said. The European Commission, which tabled the bill to boost jobs and competitiveness, said it would accept the compromise between the two main parties if it gained broad support in a crucial vote on Thursday. The EPP has 264 of the 732 deputies and the socialists 200. "The overall comfortable position of the group is that it broadly supports the compromise and we are optimistic in the vote tomorrow it will go through," socialist group spokesman Tony Robinson said. --more 21 34 Local Time 18 34 GMT
