The culture and knowledge of fundamental rights and the principles of the rule of law in the Member States must be developed, and these concepts must be made accessible to citizens so that they can detect violations of these same rights.
This is the message conveyed by the European Economic and Social Committee’s (EESC) Group on Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law (FRRL), which will publish a mission report on the subject on 5 November and unveiled some elements of it on Wednesday morning, 30 October.
This report will cover the five member countries visited by the organization since the end of 2018, namely France, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Austria, explained José Antonio Moreno Diaz, president of the FRRL.
In these countries, the members of the organisation met in particular with civil society organisations, but also with police trade unions in France, for example. The missions aimed to survey these actors on their respect for principles such as freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression, the right to non-discrimination and the rule of law in these countries.
Among the lessons learned by the EESC: civil society organisations have difficulty carrying out their mission, partly because public authorities do not give them enough space to express themselves or to participate in decisions. These NGOs even feel totally isolated in some countries, according to the rapporteur. Fake civil society organizations are also reported to have been set up by the governments of some countries to attack the actions of these NGOs. These five countries were selected at random, the organisation explained on Wednesday morning. Italy will be visited in December, and all countries will be inspected.
In these five countries, EESC observers specifically noted reductions in subsidies in Austria, which had the effect of weakening the judicial system, with a significant impact on the duration of asylum procedures. In Romania, NGOs are sometimes presented as political opponents; in Hungary, these NGOs have been curtailed, in a context of government control of the media sphere. As for France, the actors interviewed mentioned in particular the problem of the use of force during the demonstrations, although the ‘Yellow Vests’ crisis was not specifically mentioned. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)