Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-05-Speech-3-485"
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"en.20100505.75.3-485"2
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"Madam President, today, in Athens, three people lost their first human right: the right to life. It was the result of violent acts that we absolutely and categorically condemn. The Spanish Presidency of the Council would like to express, on behalf of the Council, its condolences and sympathy to the families, and therefore echoes the statement made by the President of Parliament.
The Council has also very closely followed the debates and hearings held by Parliament in March of this year, and is very much taking into account the opinions expressed by Parliament in the draft report drawn up by Ramón Jáuregui Atondo, Kinga Gál and Cristian Dan Preda. The Spanish Presidency’s prediction, and the Council’s position, is that the mandate to negotiate with the European Council, which will take time and is technical and complex in nature, will be adopted before the end of the first half of 2010.
We are talking about human rights, about adhering to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which as I said include the right to life and physical wellbeing.
The European Union is based on human rights and freedoms, and throughout its life there have been constant references in the texts that have been adopted to rights and fundamental freedoms. The culmination of this is in the Treaty of Lisbon.
Firstly, for the first time in the history of Europe the Treaty of Lisbon incorporates a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights of the citizens of the Union. It also says to the institutions that the Union will be party to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
We are therefore witnessing the culmination of the Union’s political, cultural and legal journey on human rights, which the Union places at the centre of its policies, its actions and its personality.
In this respect, we think it is of the utmost importance for the European Union to have already begun the process, in order to be able to sign the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms when the time comes. This means, among other things, accepting the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights, and increasing the guarantees for citizens. It also means, so to speak, that in some way the different legislation on human rights and freedoms that coexists in Europe will be brought closer together: the national legislation – the guarantees that exist in each of the European countries, which are democratic countries that respect and defend human rights – the European Union legislation and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, which is another piece of legislation that not only the Member States of the European Union, but other European countries are parties too, even if they are not part of the Union.
We are therefore seeing a process of convergence of these pieces of legislation and the expression of this will be the European Union signing the Convention.
On 17 March the Commission presented a recommendation to enter into negotiations for the Union to sign up to the Convention. From that time, the Council has done everything possible to speed up the debates on the negotiation mandate. There is a working group in the Council which is conducting the debates in close partnership with the European Commission.
The Council has very much taken into consideration all the mandates in Protocol 8, which is the legal point of reference in this respect, for example: the Union’s possible participation in the control bodies of the European Convention and the need to respect the competences of the Union and the powers of the institutions. It has also considered the need to appoint a European Union judge to the Court, the participation of this Parliament in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the participation of the Union in the Committee of Ministers when it exercises functions relating to the application of the European Convention on Human Rights."@en1
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