Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-044"
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"en.20001114.2.2-044"2
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"Mr President, on 6 December I am going to attend a demonstration in Nice called by the European trade union movements and the NGOs. Sixty thousand people are expected from the ETUC organisations alone. This rally is not a demonstration against the Charter. There appear to be people from among these circles who are under this impression and who would probably be inclined to, but they have completely missed the point. It is a demonstration for a social and democratic Europe of the citizens. The Charter is part and parcel of the shift in this direction, and of the dynamics at work for a strong and social Europe.
As you know, the social and economic fundamental rights are particularly dear to my heart. The EU Charter must be firmly rooted in the Council of Europe’s Social Charter as well as the ECHR. Shall I tell you what struck me last week when Prodi and Verheugen presented the progress report on enlargement? It was the little table at the back concerning the ratification of fundamental rights conventions. If you compare it with a table of the current Member States, they appear to score lower than the candidate countries, at least when it comes to the Council of Europe’s revised Social Charter. I must say I find that extremely embarrassing.
The new Charter will have legal force, even if it is not yet binding. The Court of Justice made this crystal-clear at its last assembly on 2 October. However, the institutions that are about to commit the solemn act of signing up to the Charter must not just leave it to the lawyers to deal with. For a start, they must incorporate an amendment to Article 6 of the EU Treaty. They must set a course for the articles of the Charter to be included, in a binding manner, in the Treaty, and there is a need for supervisory procedures, reporting obligations, independent experts and complaints procedures. The Council of Europe, along with the Court of Human Rights, has a wealth of experience of such forms of supervision, and we can build on these.
All in all, we must get the message across that Nice will not be the end of the road for the Charter, but only the beginning. Fundamental Rights, the heart of Europe: the rallying cry of the ETUC and the NGO contingents will remain highly topical in the coming months. That is what we will take to the streets of Nice for."@en1
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