UNDATED. Apr 3: Tens of thousands of workers staged strikes across Europe on Friday, with major stoppages in several countries to protest job cuts and to demand greater social protections, reports AH’.

The action followed a call by the Confederation of European Unions (CEU). which covers 40 union confederations in 21 European countries, representing 45 million workers, for "a day of action to defend jobs and a social Europe."

Jacques Delors, head of the European Commission, praised the action. "By demonstrating today, you are supporting its. you arc supporting European unity, and you are right to do so al this time," he told the

strike s organisers'in Brussels.

The action Involved pro tests in large towns throughout the community, as well as the European Free Trade Area, and former eastern bloc countries.

In the Dutch city of Maastricht. birthplace of the controversial treaty on closer EUropcan union, about 16,000 Belgians, Germans, Dutch, Britons and others gathered in Ihc city’s main plaza to protest unemployment and discrimination and in favour of a more benevolent Europe.

The CEU wants Europe-wide labour laws that -would guarantee "fundamental social rights which would avoid ’social dumping' and ensure harmonisation and progress."

in the ^hort term, the or-

ganisation wants EC directives on workers consultation in multinational companies, and for jobs and the community's 14 million unemployed to be put al the top of the agenda at the European summit set for Copenhagen on June 21-22.

Heinz Werner Meyer, President of the German DGB Union, warned against the Maastricht Treaty by stressing the problems caused by German reunification. ’’A European market by itself is not’enou^h,” he said, underlining the need for a broader economy.

A group of Germans in the crowd carried a streamer saying, without btcad In the stomach, no Europe in the head.’’

In Britain, rail workers struck and paralysed the ria-' tion. keeping tens o,t thou sands of people away from work, emptying stations and halting commuter and intercity services across the country.

British Rail's announcement last November saying it would cut 5,000 jobs from its 138,000 workforce prompted the strike.

The strike, organised' by the Railways. Maritime and ■Transport (RMT) union to protest Job cuts, was one of three organised in the biggest day of industrial. action in Britain since the failed miner’s strike of 1984-85.