Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-337"
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"Mr President, in this, the 60
year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Catania report comes just at the right time. The wide variety of subjects raised, the strength of the proposals made, and your reactions too, are in keeping with the crucial nature of matters that brings us together today. I am therefore going to try to answer the various questions that have been put to me and try hard to group together the speeches, since several of them related to the same subjects.
This summit was important because the Roma issue is of common interest to Europeans and calls for a proactive policy – one that is of course adapted to specific national conditions – to be conducted by each Member State. A voluntary policy of this kind at national level should have the specific aim of ensuring that the Roma population really does have access to education, jobs, healthcare and housing, and it is quite clear that coordination between the Member States of the Union is absolutely crucial and important.
On the initiative of the French Presidency, several ideas have made it possible to pursue a formal debate on this issue. A second equality summit took place in Paris on 29 and 30 September 2008. A round table on poverty and exclusion took place on 15 and 16 October 2008 in Marseille with two of my government colleagues. In short, the Member States of the European Union are paying significant attention to the situation of the Roma community, and I believe and indeed am sure that, from this point of view, our work will be taken further even after the French Presidency of the European Union. Make no mistake, we are fully committed to this issue.
On the broader issue of migrants, then, I should like, as the French Presidency of the European Union comes to an end, to mention the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and what a success it has been. For the first time with this Pact, the European Union or the Member States of the European Union will share objectives, will have a common position on this issue, in particular, with regard to the creation of an asylum office, to the biometric visa objective, and to the action required of the European Union when too much pressure is put on a State, especially in the field of immigration.
The Pact which, I would remind you, was adopted by the European Council in October, proposes political commitments such as organising legal immigration by taking account of needs and capabilities, combating illegal immigration by working together, making border controls more effective and creating a Europe of asylum.
In short, I believe that all of these elements relating to the Pact on Immigration and Asylum are such as to enable the European Union to adopt a common strategy in this area and perhaps, through this common strategy, to implement a genuine legal immigration policy at the same time as associated rights.
I should like now to answer a question, a point, a comment concerning Guantánamo and the consequences of its closure, in order to tell you that the European Union has said many times that the fight against terrorism had to be conducted in compliance with the rule of law, that is, with respect shown for human rights, international humanitarian law and international refugee law. We also said that there could be no legal vacuum for detainees, no matter who they are, and that the existence of secret prisons is unacceptable.
Our position has not changed, and all this is based on our certainty that democratic societies can tackle terrorism in the long term only if they remain true to their own values. The European Union believes that the United States should accordingly take steps to close Guantánamo as soon as possible. We are therefore conducting an on-going dialogue with the US Administration on this issue.
I believe that a final point was raised by several of you, ladies and gentlemen. I am thinking of the issue of human rights, here in Europe, and in particular of the role of the Council of Europe. I should like to start by paying tribute to the role played by the Council of Europe in defending and promoting fundamental rights. I believe that, ever since its creation, the Council of Europe has done an excellent job in this regard, particularly with the European Court of Human Rights.
Mechanisms for monitoring human rights within the Member States do already exist, and I believe that using these mechanisms is a way for us not to give in to double standards but to actually put our own house in order, since the Council of Europe and its legal instrument, the European Court of Human Rights, act as driving forces to remind the Member States of the Union and beyond – since the Council of Europe has more members than the European Union – of their duty to point out their shortcomings and to ask them to remedy these. The Council of Europe is therefore a crucial instrument, a crucial organisation when it comes to the defence and promotion of human rights.
In parallel to this, then, there is the Agency for Fundamental Rights, which also deals with human rights within the Member States and which is mentioned in various reports that have been published recently. However, the Agency is focused on the human rights situation in the Member States where they implement Community law, and that is all. Knowing that the scope of each organisation is restricted to certain areas, I therefore believe that there may be a
between them both. And thus, far from being a limitation of its remit, this provision that I just mentioned is instead designed to prevent the duplication of the Council of Europe’s activities.
Firstly, I should like to mention the issue of social rights and extreme poverty, which was raised by many MEPs, including Mrs Roure. Obviously these economic, social and cultural rights are important. They form part of the second generation of human rights and are rights symbolised by the signing of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966. Indeed, you are right to stress the importance of applying these rights, as they are liable to become discredited if they are not applied.
The regulation establishing the Agency expressly provides, for example, that the Agency should cooperate closely with the Council of Europe. Such cooperation should guarantee that any overlap is avoided and, on this point, I shall continue to cite the texts: ‘such cooperation should guarantee that any overlap between the activities of the Agency and those of the Council of Europe are avoided’. It is therefore important for the Agency for Fundamental Rights and the institutions of the Council of Europe to try to ensure that their efforts complement one another and that the bodies in operation complement one another. That is why the Agency’s on-going concern is obviously to work within its sphere of competence while complementing the action of the Council of Europe.
I believe that I have responded in brief to all of the points you have raised, ladies and gentlemen. I shall leave it to the European Commissioner to answer any questions concerning him or put to him.
It follows that the European Union and France are, of course, actively involved in combating extreme poverty. I would remind you that the role of special rapporteur has been created within the Human Rights Commission specifically to deal with these issues, these rights. The guiding principles for stepping up the fight against extreme poverty are currently being drawn up at the United Nations. Lastly, the European Union and, more specifically, France, have taken what seem to me to be interesting initiatives. The European Union has promoted and endorsed the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which has just been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and created an individual complaints mechanism.
However, I obviously agree with you that this is a long-term fight, and that so long as there is so much discrimination and so much poverty, so long as there are so many people unemployed and so many problems linked to access to healthcare, we cannot be satisfied, but efforts – on-going, constant efforts – are being made to ensure that economic, social and cultural rights are clearly applied, with the European Union being the first to promote them.
Next, there is a second issue that was mentioned by many of you, and that is the issue of homosexuality. I should like to say in this regard that the initiative taken by France is very simple, and to repeat that our starting point was the finding that, in the world today, there are ninety countries that penalise homosexuality, six of which apply the death penalty. This means that men and women cannot choose freely to live according to their sexual orientation and risk being sent to prison or indeed prosecuted. We are therefore in the realm of fundamental rights here.
The aim is not to open up issues, as very interesting as they are, on gay parenting or marriage, or to take decisions via this initiative of holding social debates. Rather, the aim is to extend this fundamental right – the right freely to express one’s sexual orientation without running the risk of being denied one’s freedom – to everyone in society.
It is as simple as that, and I believe that it is to the credit of the European Union, of the Member States of the European Union – since many of us support this project – that this initiative is going to be seen through tomorrow at the United Nations. I hope that as many states as possible will join us because I believe that, when it comes to fundamental rights, there is no debate to be had, since this is purely and simply a question of humanity and of freedom.
Let us move on now to another issue, the issue of the Roma and, more generally, of migrants, which several of you have raised. In terms of the Roma, on 2 July, the Commission submitted a report within the context of its communication. This report lists the existing policies and instruments, contributes to the inclusion of the Roma population and recommends a more systematic use of these policies and these instruments in order precisely to encourage the integration of the Roma.
As you know, on 16 September in Brussels, the French Presidency took part in the first European Roma Summit, which was organised by none other than the European Commission, with the help of the Soros Foundation. This summit gathered together the representatives of the European institutions and of the Member States, and attracted a strong turnout of members of civil society. My colleague from the French Government, the Minister for Housing and Cities, and the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, paid tribute there to the exceptional way in which Europeans from all backgrounds rallied around this summit."@en1
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