Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-14-Speech-3-458-000"
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"en.20111214.29.3-458-000"2
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"Mr President, I am grateful to this Parliament for raising this important issue and for giving me the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Council. Fundamental rights are the basis on which the EU is founded and lie at the heart of everything it does. These rights enshrined in the constitutional traditions of Member States, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights include respect for the life, health and dignity of persons subject to imprisonment.
The Council is strongly committed to taking action to strengthen mutual trust between the judicial authorities of the Member States. This is key to ensuring the effective implementation of the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions in the area of freedom, security and justice. Detention conditions are important. They are particularly relevant in the context of ensuring the correct functioning of legal instruments on mutual recognition, such as the framework decision on the European arrest warrant.
The European Council specifically addressed this issue in the Stockholm programme. It stated that efforts should be undertaken to strengthen mutual trust and render more efficient the principle of mutual recognition in the area of detention. Efforts to promote the exchange of best practices should be pursued and implementation of the European prison rules approved by the Council of Europe should be supported. Issues such as alternatives to imprisonment, pilot projects on detention and best practices in prison management could also be addressed.
The European Council invited the Commission to reflect further on these issues with the possibilities offered by the Treaty of Lisbon. The Council welcomed the adoption by the Commission on 14 July this year of a Green Paper on strengthening mutual trust in the European judicial area and the application of EU criminal justice legislation in the field of detention. It will follow closely the development of the consultation procedure launched by the Commission with this Green Paper.
However, the Council has not received any proposal to date for either legislative or non-legislative action in the field of detention conditions. Should the Commission decide that action is required and present a proposal, the Council will, of course, examine it closely, given the importance of the issue.
It goes without saying that the Union may only adopt legislation where the Treaties provide it with the powers to do so. In the area of detention, the limits of the Union’s competence are set out in the relevant provisions of Article 82 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Detention conditions are not covered by this provision. It is the responsibility of Member States to ensure that detention conditions and prison management respect fundamental rights and, in particular, that they meet agreed international standards, in particular, those of the Council of Europe.
In its Green Paper, to which I have already referred, the Commission sets out some of the activities related to the issue of detention conditions and for which it provides support through various financial programmes. The Commission also has a regular dialogue with the Council of Europe on these issues. The Council supports these activities and would welcome other forms of support to Member States in the area of detention conditions and facilities. That said, and given the absence of relevant Treaty provisions, the Council has no further power to take action in the areas mentioned by the honourable Members.
Issues such as the setting of common standards on detention conditions, tackling the abuse of pre-trial detention and overcrowding, and the rates of non-nationals detained, all fall outside the scope of action by the Union. The Council is asked about the possibility of providing statistics on the relationship between recourse to the European arrest warrant and pre-trial detentions. Since 2005, the Council has carried out an annual statistical survey among Member States on quantitative data relating to the functioning of the European arrest warrant. However, this is the only statistical data held by the Council."@en1
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"Maciej Szpunar,"1
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