Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-17-Speech-4-094"
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"en.20080117.15.4-094"2
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"Mr President, on what legal basis are we constructing this agency? The Fundamental Rights Agency would have been given authority by the European Constitution. It would be given authority by the Lisbon Treaty. But the only legal base it has at the moment is a flimsy cat’s cradle of communiqués, of press releases, of resolutions in Council.
The European Union does not have a problem with the systematic violation of human rights. It does have a problem with the systematic violation of democratic rights. The problem we have is that a human rights charter written down on paper is meaningless unless there are also mechanisms to hold leaders to account.
If you look at the constitutions of the former East Germany and of the Soviet Union, they were full of these wonderful promises of liberty. But, as the peoples of those unhappy countries found, it meant nothing without democracy.
That is why, if you want to impose this human rights charter, you should consult the people first in a referendum.
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