Strasbourg, 16/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - With the French parliament taking position the same day on the future of the Controller General of prisons in France, five MEPs, led by S&D members Françoise Castex and Stavros Lambrinidis, launched a European campaign in Strasbourg on Tuesday 16 February to reinforce the rights of prisoners in the EU.
Ahead of the forthcoming Green Paper of the European Commission on this dossier, which is expected in the spring, the French MEP and her Greek colleague presented a written declaration to the press on Wednesday, which was also signed by the German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens/EFA), Portugal's Carlos Coelho (EPP) and Diana Wallis of the UK (ALDE), regarding infringements of the fundamental rights of prisoners in the EU, calling for the prison controller structure to be rolled out to all member states to prevent violations of fundamental rights in the prisons of the EU. The European executive is called upon to gather information on detention conditions in all member states, and on all cases of infringements of the fundamental rights of prisoners, in full respect of the principle of subsidiarity. Additionally, the Commission is called upon to lay down common minimum standards for prison detention, to be applied across all member states.
The capitals are then called upon to implement effective and independent national control mechanisms for prisons and detention centres. The signatories also call on the Commission to ask the Fundamental Rights Agency of the EU to take action to prevent infringements of the fundamental rights of prisoners. Lastly, the member states are urged to give the MEPs unfettered access to prisons and detention centres. The initiative by Castex and Lambrinidis aims to guarantee identical prison conditions for all prisoners in Europe, given that 5% of the 600,000 prisoners in Europe are held in a member state of which they are not a national. (E.H./transl.fl)