Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-12-Speech-4-036"
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"en.20061012.3.4-036"2
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"Mr President, human rights are a great good, one that we have to work to defend throughout the world, and, aware though I am of the sad events in Russia, there is still much for us to do at home.
Important though Articles 6 and 7 of the EU Treaty are as cornerstones, we cannot – we must not – leave it at that. Since we do not believe that it is sufficient to make little more than cursory mention to them, we cannot say often enough, in any discussion of them, that what we need above all is our own comprehensive catalogue of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the form of binding European law. We do need the European Constitution, and the European Charter of Human Rights contained in it must become more than just a solemn declaration. Only when it has become binding and directly applicable European law can the celebrations begin, and that is a priority for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats as much as it is for the other groups.
Given the high value that we rightly attach to fundamental rights, it also goes without saying that all the essential functions involved in ensuring compliance with fundamental rights must remain reserved, in the main, to the EU institutions. The agency we are discussing today can, may and should, have exclusively ancillary functions, and it is in this respect that I have my doubts about this document.
Commissioner Frattini said, among other things, that the Agency is meant to monitor compliance with fundamental rights, so what has become of the Commission’s core function? I have, for many years, been teaching my university students that the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties and watches over them and that it is the European Court of Justice that exists to guarantee the judicial protection of European law, and does an outstanding job of it too. By the way, are the democratic and legal structures in our Member States really as much at risk as some speakers today have claimed? Some Members’ speeches today really have got me worried.
Last, but not least, political control over European requirements is one of the essential functions of this House, of the European Parliament itself, and that is the way it must stay. It is for that reason that our group, faced with the topic of agencies, concerned itself with, and gave thought to, such mundane things as bureaucracy, parallel structures, duplication and additional funding.
Mrs Gál has our wholehearted backing in the work she has done and is doing; the preparatory steps she has taken in this area are good and important. We would, though, like it to be borne in mind that it is not acceptable that the rules applicable to all other agencies should not be binding on this one. That goes against common sense. The assessment role that this agency is planned to have is something else that we ought by rights to leave with the European Court of Justice, rather than allowing it to be put at risk by duplicated functions."@en1
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