Brussels, 07/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) is calling on the Convention that is drafting the EU Charter of fundamental rights to strengthen and complete the economic and social rights presently included in the draft Charter. It is also calling on the drafters of the Charter to modify the horizontal clause relating to the level of protection so as to include a reference to all international conventions that offer greater protection that are linked to least one Member State (and not, as is the case in the present draft, "all the Member States": Ed.). It calls on the Member States to move in favour of a binding Charter of which the Court of Justice would ensure the respect.
Until now the EU has not provided itself with a true European social policy, notes the FIDH, which feels that "if the new Charter does not aim to substitute such a policy, it will nevertheless have three advantages: (1) prevent a regression in this field; (2) guide future Community legislation; (3) steer Court of Justice jurisprudence. In this context, the FIDH affirms that the future Community regulations will have to lean towards the realisation of the social principals that are written down in the Charter and that it will also be the case for legislation adopted by the Member States when they act in the scope of application of Community law: thus the Charter will have true added value in this respect. A careful analysis of Court of Justice jurisprudence shows that the Court authorises the Member States, so as to maintain a high level of social protection, to adopt certain measure likely to being barriers to trade, reminds the FIDH which continues: "Given that the Court of Justice interprets Community law in accordance with the economic and social rights that will be included in the Charter, the risk that the Court of Justice does not require from the Member States that they reduce social guarantees to conform with Community would be even more limited than is presently the case".
Taking into account the potential added value of the Charter in social matters, the FIDH regrets that several social rights, as they are presently established in the draft Articles of the future EU Charter, are labelled in a less precise manner that the social rights established in the revised European Social Charter (RESC) and the fundamental Community social charter for workers (1989). The FIDH notably cites social security, the protection of health as well as social and medical assistance. Neither does the draft Charter mention the right of a worker representative to protection within the company against acts that could bring prejudice to them due to their specific quality, nor their right to appropriate facilities so as to enable them to rapidly and effectively fulfil their duties (Article, 28 RESC). This is also the case for the right of elderly people to social protection, which the RESC describes as the elderly persons right to "remain for as long as possible individuals in society", "to freely choose the way if life and lead an independent existence in their usual environment as long as they desire and that it is possible". The FIDH notes that these omissions are all the more astonishing since, at times, derived Community law has already intervened so as to recognised these rights. Thus, while the draft Charter does not mention the workers right to dignity in the work place, that is to say protection against harassment (Article 26 RESC), it already exists in two Community instruments targeting harassment, considered as a discrimination in the workplace. The same applies to the workers right to the protection of their assets in case of their employers insolvency, which is the object of a Directive from 1980. The FIDH calls on the Convention to fill all these holes.