Brussels, 08/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Convention that is preparing the draft EU Charter of fundamental rights must meet, Monday and Tuesday in Brussels, to adopt a final draft. Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, the three components of the Convention (EP, National parliaments and government representatives) must separately meet to take a stance on the draft, before the plenary session of Tuesday morning. However the consensus risks being very hard to reach; the draft made public at the end of July is high criticised, sometimes by lack of understanding for its objectives or of its legal framework, but also often justifiably, by the unions and various civil society organisations. To that is added the dissatisfaction of MEPs, who have submitted a large number of amendments, and of those who continue to fear that the Charter may be bogged down over the internal judicial orders of the Member States, be interpreted as the widening of the Community scope of competence or cause conflicts over jurisprudence with the European Court of Human Rights, while the draft Charter is very clear on this issue: the Charter only applies to Community institutions and only links the Member States in the framework of the implementation of Community legislation, without creating new competence for the EU, and in the respect for the European Human Rights Convention (EHRC) unless it expressly foresees rights that do not appear (for example new rights linked to new technologies and rights attached to European citizenship) or that offer a superior level of protection.
One of the main sources of disenchantment for a large number of MEPs is found, as we have already indicated (see EUROPE of 2 September, p.5) in the existence of a part B that has not been discussed by the Convention and which at first sight appears as "an excess of zeal" by the presidium that is attempting through rallying the opposition to the Charter. This text, sort of explanatory statement, reproduces, article after article of the draft, the origin of the rights held within it (EHRC, EC Treaty, pertinent international Conventions or Charters) with all the limitations included in these texts, including those that today are completely obsolete. According to numerous MEPs and some lawyers, this part B would sadly find its place in the international convention, but is not justified in a declaration of rights that could be called to appear in a preliminary of a treaty of a constitutional nature. Furthermore, the references to the EHRC and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, already appear in the draft Charter, which would bind, with as much effectiveness, the Community judge if he had to interpret the provisions of the Charter whose origin is found in the EHRC. Thus is the conclusion of the representatives of the Council of Europe, Marc Fischbach and Hans-Christian Kruger, who note that the proposed text largely meets their concerns as to the possible risk of divergent interpretations or even contradictions by the Courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Nevertheless they feel that for more legal security, an accession of the EU to the EHRC or, at least, the instituting of a mechanism for prejudicial issues, remains desirable. They also feel that is will be necessary to identify the cases where the Charter intends ensuring greater or more extended protection than that granted by the EHRC and that, from this point of view, the explanations in part B will be very useful. However EUROPE believes that this "explanatory" formula of part B is not considered as the icing on the cake by representatives from the Council of Europe, who would have preferred a more horizontal provision of the Charter clearly referring to the EHRC and the jurisprudence of the Court in Strasbourg, by indicating the right for which greater or more extensive protection is assured. With regard to this let us recalls that the EHRC explicitly authorises the States who are party to offer greater protection than that foreseen by the Convention.