Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-389"
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"en.20100518.32.2-389"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, Mr López Garrido, I think this is an important day. I know that there are many important days in this House, but I sincerely believe that since the Treaty of Lisbon was adopted on 1 December 2009, the mandate for the European Union to sign up to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has been one of the big headlines of the process of European integration.
I therefore think that we are witnessing the culmination of a long-held aspiration that is part of the historical process of European integration, because human dignity, human rights, democracy and the rule of law are part of the DNA of what has largely been the historical process of European integration.
The report that we will adopt tomorrow is realising this mandate, which the European Union has had since the Treaty of Lisbon required accession to the convention. I would like to summarise the content of this report based on three main ideas.
First of all, I would like to point out that it is not only the Member States that protect human rights. Now it is the European Union that protects human rights, with its new legal personality under the Treaty of Lisbon; it is Union law and it is the development of an EU state that Member States can achieve. They can do so if they submit to the principles of the European Convention and to a court that is external to the Union and to the Member States and guarantees the fulfilment of those principles at all times and in all places.
The second idea is providing the European public with a new law and a new court: the right of Europeans to apply to this new court in order to guarantee fulfilment of the rights established by the convention in relation to the European Union or the Member States when they are implementing Union law.
Even the European Union’s activities involving foreign policy, policing, security outside our borders and international cooperation are subject to the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights. What does this mean? In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, it means a major step forward, historically speaking, in the process of integration and in building the most essential notion of the European idea of human dignity which, as we said before, responds to the demands of the European public.
It also means strengthening the European system for protecting fundamental rights because, alongside the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Treaty of Lisbon, it creates a setting, a legal protection framework that is almost perfect and is therefore the most advanced in the world. It also strengthens the Union’s credibility in the eyes of third countries, as the European Union has always demanded the fulfilment of human rights in its bilateral relations.
This report sets out institutional and legal aspects that I am not going to describe now. What I do want to do is point out that here and now, a process is beginning, since, along with this report that has been drafted jointly with the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Commission now has a position, a negotiating framework that will enable it to come back to Parliament to adopt this agreement and will enable the Member States to ratify accession to the European Convention. I would like to thank Mrs Reding for the swiftness with which the Commission adopted the mandate for negotiations, and the European Council, which will do so shortly. I would also like to thank Mrs Gál and Mr Preda for their cooperation in the two other committees. Ladies and gentlemen, I think that this is headline news."@en1
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