News

On June 26 Social Platform participated in a conference in the European Parliament by the Green/EFA on ‘When Rule of Law is at risk: What can/should the EU do?’ MEP Ulrike Lunacek hosted the event together with MEP Judith Sargentini and Tatjana Zdanoka.

Social Platform (Annica Ryngbeck, Policy Officer) participated in one of the panels and provided a number of examples on how the EU institutions can work on improving the monitoring of fundamental rights in the EU by mainstreaming a rights-based approach into the EU’s other policies and current key processes:

•     The EU’s economic governance has an impact on fundamental rights – The Fundamental Rights Agency’s (FRA) latest annual report, with a focus on the economic crisis, clearly shows the link between social rights and fundamental rights – poverty, social exclusion, discrimination and violations of fundamental rights (see previous weekly news). In order to find solutions to improve the lives of people we propose a better coordination between EU bodies that do research on a European and member state level: what the Parliament can do is to call for amendments of the regulations and work programmes of the FRA in Vienna, Eurofound in Dublin and EIGE in Vilnius to work together and develop joint monitoring instruments on how fundamental rights, poverty and social exclusion and gender equality is linked and affected by EU laws and policies.
•     The Parliament can also support the Commission’s initiative for a Social Investment Package (that will be reflected in the next country specific recommendations) and to make sure that it is implemented with a clear rights based approach. The proposal itself unfortunately lacks a rights based approach, however the working paper on children recognizes children as rights holders which shows it is possible and that it can work and be improved for the future. An occasion for the Parliament is also to take the opportunity to react on the mid-term review of the EU 2020 strategy in 2014 to find ways to improve it as much as possible in terms of fundamental rights compliance up until 2020.
•     Another way to monitor and report on Fundamental Rights implementation in the EU is for the EU institutions to put in place a structural and meaningful dialogue with civil society organisations, who represent the people on the ground affected by European laws and policies put in place (with ‘meaningful’ we mean that the decisions should reflect the involvement of CSOs). This is set out ‘on paper’ in the EU2020 (recital 16) but not yet ‘in practice’.

Some highlights from the speakers:

•     Emmanuel Crabit, Head of Unit, Commission DG Justice (General Justice Policies and judicial systems). Mr Crabit explained the EU Justice Scoreboard and how it is in place to assist member states to improve the quality and efficiency of their national justice systems – as a key means to promote growth. The Commission also wants to expand the areas covered by the Scoreboard to cover civil and criminal matters. More knowledge is needed about the reality on the ground to develop new effective tools and for more innovative implementation of existing laws.
•     Deaglán Ó Briain, Chair of FREMP, Working Party of the Council of the EU on Fundamental Rights, Citizens Rights and Free Movement of Persons. Mr O Briain spoke about how we need other tools to tackle anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia and discrimination in employment and goods and services – we need to demonstrate EU values. Member states are discussing different ideas and approaches to the promotion of rule of law and fundamental rights; first member states need to gather evidence, then look at how to formulate recommendations and how to have a political dialogue that reaches agreement (and if not, then what happens?)
•     Israel Butler, Senior Policy Officer, Open Society European Policy Institute proposed the EU develops a fundamental rights litigation strategy and to reintroduce its country monitoring similar to the UN Universal Periodic Review system and how the findings can be made into synthesis reports and recommendations to the Commissions working party on fundamental rights.
•     Natacha Kazatchkine, Senior Executive Officer, Amnesty International spoke on the fragmentation of fundamental rights verses human rights and the separation between DG Justice and DG Home Affairs; How there is a lack of accountability and legal enforcement and how the EU most be able to identify human rights issues beyond its own defined priorities.
•     Academia: Dr. Ehs (University of Vienna) spoke on how to strengthen the European Citizens Initiatives. Mr Gramatikov (Hague Institute for Internalisation of Law) taking on the ‘bottom-up-approach’ looking at how people experience rule of law and what legal problems they have encountered in life. Prof. Müller (Princeton University) reasoned about mechanisms to withdraw membership for member states that do not respect democracy and fundamental rights. Finally Ms Scheppele (Princeton University) introduced the concept of ‘Frankenstate’ when a member states collective actions and systemic changes lead to a new legal order that breaches compliance with article 2 of the Treaty. A way for the Commission to be more political and more accountable is to act with infringement against ‘bundled article 2 actions’ and to sanction by withholding money to the member states until they comply again.