Strasbourg, 08/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - The need to ensure the security of citizens without becoming obsessed with security was the subject at the heart of debates in Strasbourg on Wednesday on the Council and Commission declarations regarding freedom and security and responses to the terrorist threat while safeguarding the rights of citizens (see EUROPE 9022). It is not an easy balance to strike and some MEPS express concern about citizen security in particular, while others voice indignation at the request that terrorists should have the same rights as their victims. The chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE Group, France), cites Jean-Jacques Rousseau as saying that, in the current constitutional situation, “a citizen is he who, as holder of a right, may also consider himself the author of that right”. Is that what European citizens feel at present? Mr Cavada asked, like others calling on the Council Presidency to take account of the position of the Parliament which represents the citizens in question, and to begin negotiation in earnest on questions that are of concern to citizens such as data protection. The States too often take advantage of the fight against terrorism to violate human rights, French Green member Hélène Flautre, Chair of the sub-committee on human rights, regretted citing by way of example Pakistan, China, Yemen, Tunisia and the United States. Sophia In't Veld (ALDE, NL) considers that we are “on a slippery slope” and calls for focus not to be solely on the technological aspects of intelligence but also for human intelligence to be used - in other words, “old fashioned spies”. Her compatriot, Edith Mastenbroek (Socialist Group), spoke of a personal experience. In Morocco after a terrorist attack, she had been struck by posters saying “Hands off my country”. In her view, this is what should be said to terrorists who attack Union territory. We must use the means available to us, while remaining intransigent on defence of human rights, Spanish Socialist Enrique Baron (who recalled that it is thanks to telephone surveillance that the authors of the Madrid attacks were arrested) and Antonio Tajani (Forza Italia) stressed. In Italy, also, it is thanks to monitoring of telephone communications that one of the London terrorists was apprehended.
The Commission proposals received broad support among MEPs, mainly Giovanni Fava of Italy (Socialist Group), who calls for precisions on the different Commission and Council approaches regarding data collection, as well as on the role of the European Parliament in this legislative work. Some British representatives did not fail to seize this opportunity to attack their government and the Union, especially Conservative member Geoffrey van Orden who, like UKIP member Nigel Farage, sees this attempt to pool counter-terrorism organisation as an example of the Union's “nasty habit” to seek to enlarge its powers. We must first of all put our own house in order, he asserted, calling (like Mario Borghezio, of Lega Nord) for better control of national borders. Our public opinion, Libor Rucek of the Czech Republic states on the other hand, believes in the need for Union action to guarantee greater security as, from experience, we have learnt that, without security, we cannot live in freedom. Other MEPs call for pressure to be put on the “sincere Muslims” (sic Antoine Duquesne, ALDE Group, Belgium) so that they condemn the positions that are incompatible with the conception of human rights and specific Union freedoms. However, the targeting of mosques in Union countries causes Sajjad Karim (ALDE Group) concern. “I am a European Muslim who has studied in one of these schools”, Mr Karim explained before going on to add: “I am proud to be British and to be European … do not make us second-class citizens”.