Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-193"
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"Mr President, I think that it is important and that it will simplify the debate if the honourable members know how the Commission has dealt with Parliament’s proposal, as far as the acceptance of amendments is concerned.
The number of amendments which has actually been accepted is very large and I imagine that we agree that we need to examine how these ideas can be incorporated into an amended proposal so that we retain the structure and balance in the text and the proposal has some chance of being approved by the Council, because I think that, for all of us, the best balance is between what we want and what is feasible.
I should like to refer very briefly to the more basic amendments which we are unable to accept. The first concerns your reservations on the exclusion from the draft of a detailed reference to specific services, such as the police or the judicial authorities. As the rapporteur rightly pointed out, the directive may only intervene where there is Community jurisdiction. This does not apply in the case of judicial assistance in criminal matters and in the case of police cooperation, both of which come within the scope of the Treaty on the European Union. We therefore agree with the reference in Amendment No 37 to public bodies in general but cannot agree to the specific reference to the police and judicial authorities.
A few words now on the huge issue of special problems in the area of immigration policies and asylum policies. The Commission prefers to follow a gradual approach due to the complexity of the issue and, when processing specific legislative measures on admission policies in these two areas, i.e. asylum and immigration, the Commission will evaluate the situation and decide to what extent the inclusion of an ad hoc clause against discrimination would be the most suitable response. There are other points, such as public procurement, where the framework prohibits such criteria from creeping in, the issue of statistics, where I acknowledge and support your fear of a shortage of statistics – one of the basic objectives of the action programme is to create databases at European level – and finally, our obligation, as European institutions, to apply the same rules as those which we propose for the Member States. The reforms which we are presently endeavouring to implement within the Commission have taken account of the entire framework of this directive.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for allowing me to run over time, but I needed to comment on a whole series of particularly complicated amendments and articles in order to give the House the best possible understanding of the points which can be accepted and, as you can see, they are numerous.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that if we show the joint political will and continue our excellent collaboration, we can make the small vision of Europe’s fundamental commitment on the issue of racism come true.
As the House knows, I – as the Commissioner responsible – presented an anti-discrimination package a few months ago, containing two directives and a programme. Today we are discussing one of these two directives and, allow me to say that this is only possible thanks to the brilliant collaboration and highly efficient work of the two parliamentary committees, the endeavours of which, I think, surpass all expectations. This particularly complicated directive, which has multiple repercussions, involves national peculiarities and different views, and to which all the committees involved have made various contributions, has evolved into a report and a consensus has been found. I should like to congratulate Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Howitt and everyone else involved, as well as the Portuguese Presidency.
I believe that this conference is of historic importance for two reasons: first, because the demand for this sort of legislative act was tabled over twenty years ago. Social groups, political parties, parliaments, MEPs and international conferences have proposed and have insisted that we legislate against the huge issue of racism and the conduct of organised society. Twenty years on, it is now coming true. We are here discussing this directive.
The second reason is that, because of the current political climate, because of the political problems which have arisen within the Union over recent months in connection with racist clashes at political and social level, today’s piece of work is the first to go beyond words, to go beyond resolutions and general political expression to specific policy making. The European Commission has worked quickly following the presentation of your committee’s report, with the collaboration of all the services involved, and I am pleased to say that over half the amendments have been accepted either in spirit or in part. I must stress that the amendments which have not been accepted have mainly been rejected for administrative or legal reasons or because we know from our experience and from our collaboration over the years that the Council is sure to reject them. As you know, our basis is Article 13 and it is an article which limits our room for manoeuvre.
I should like to comment on a number of amendments. I am pleased to say that we agree with the amendments to incorporate the sexual dimension (Amendments Nos 7 and 59), the amendments to the material and personal scope (Amendments Nos 5, 30, 31, 34, 36 and 37) and the amendment on taking positive action (Amendment No 40). We also agree with the idea of conciliation procedures in Amendment No 42, consultation with governmental organisations (Amendments Nos 21, 50 and 51) and with the amendments relating to previous acts of the European Parliament and the Council (Amendments Nos 3, 4, 8, 9 and 12). I also agree with your proposal to define the role of the European Monitoring Centre – as contained in Amendment No 59 – although I should point out that our experience at the Commission tells us that the submission of reports by Member States every two years is a particularly demanding task and will not enable us to correctly assess the impact of the policies developed. You also propose to amend the definition of indirect discrimination and one of the speakers also mentioned this. I agree with the points made in the amendments and you may be sure that we shall use them to help formulate the definition in line with the interpretation of the European Court of Justice in the O’Flynn case.
I should like to say a few words to clarify the article on balancing the burden of proof proposed in amendment 43, even though the debate and the Council have made it clear that there will be problems in getting it accepted. However, I should like to point out – because the Commission agrees with this approach – that a similar discussion was held several years ago along the same lines on the subject of discrimination between the sexes. At that time, too, there was a great deal of concern about the repercussions which this would also have in the courts, where it was feared that a large number of cases would be filed, and in companies. After many years in application, we have seen that these fears were unfounded and that there were no problems. I think, therefore, that we can use this experience and be bold enough to take this approach.
I agree – and I welcome your persistence – that the directive should apply to all persons present on the territory of the Member States and not only to Community citizens. I also agree with the proposal to make it clear that the directive will apply to natural and legal persons, but I must point out that your reference to non-formalised groups of persons cannot be incorporated because this concept is not legally recognised. The content of the concept is understandable on merit, but it has not yet been legally recognised and will cause numerous problems.
I should also like to refer to an issue which appears to be of particular importance to the House; I refer to the distinction between racial and ethnic origin on the one hand and religious conviction on the other. Long discussions were held in the Commission when the proposal was drawn up as to whether a ban on discrimination on the grounds of religion should be included in this directive. We understand the argument that it is often difficult to make a clear distinction. This frequently applies in the workplace, mainly because there are problems in relation to prayer facilities, obtaining permission for religious events and special dietary requirements in the workplace, which is why the second directive in the package, which relates to employment issues and discrimination in the workplace, makes clearer mention of discrimination on the grounds of religion. But we do understand how difficult and how complicated the issue will become if we have an extensive ban on discrimination on the grounds of religion, for example in education. And how difficult it will be to negotiate the directive with the Member States, where there are diametrically opposed approaches. However, we welcome the approach which you have taken, i.e. the fact that Amendments Nos 15 and 29 point out that some people will probably try to interpret discrimination on the grounds of racial origin as discrimination on the grounds of religion and I agree that the directive must be strengthened on this point and that the Member States must also clearly draw the attention of the courts and other competent authorities to this danger when dealing with the issue of the right to take legal action against discrimination.
I should also like to comment briefly on independent agencies. I agree with some of the ideas for their role which you put forward, especially the need for them to be independent, but we cannot specify how they are to be organised or how they are to operate because that is a question for the Member States themselves."@en1
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