Mr President, this report, on which I should like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, confirms the pattern of human rights violations and human rights problems in the European Union, which we have also identified in the four previous reports during the life of this Parliament. Misconduct on the part of government personnel and police officials, conditions in prisons, unequal treatment, discrimination, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and particularly recently, the increasingly-threatened erosion of civil rights, such as the rights of suspects, the presumption of innocence, and last but not least, privacy – all of this under the guise of the fight against terrorism. Mrs Karamanou will say something more about this in a moment. All in all, these reports, and particularly the last one by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, prompt us to reconsider what should be the political response of the European institutions to all of this. That is why I am especially pleased that Minister Roche, present here on behalf of the Irish Presidency, has stated in no uncertain terms that the European Union must be prepared to search its own heart. I very much appreciate this statement. Other presidencies have avoided the issue or have failed to turn up at all to debates of this kind, and it appears to me that such honesty should be very much appreciated, so all honour to him for that. Nevertheless, we should question whether the EU can, as yet, be considered to possess a fully-fledged human rights policy. The fact is that it does not. We are moving in the right direction, but what we have at the moment is fragments and building blocks all the same. In a relatively short space of time, over the past five years, important normative and institutional parameters have been moved. As various speakers have already pointed out, although changes have been made, all of these combined efforts still have not led to a coherent human rights policy. Allow me to outline the various points in the remaining time that is allocated to me. First of all, we have a Charter which explicitly states the human rights obligations of the Member States. That is truly wonderful. Secondly, we have a European Parliament which uses this Charter as a basis for its reports. That too is commendable, because that makes the process systematic and verifiable. Thirdly, as the Commissioner rightly pointed out, there is a network, and that has not only made the reporting, but also the analysis and advice-giving much more professional. We should certainly continue down this road, for that is a major achievement. Fourthly, we have Article 7 of the Treaty, to which the Council in Nice added a warning mechanism. That too is enormous progress, because to put it bluntly, it takes more than an atom bomb to wage war. Fifthly, we have received the Commission’s communication of October 2003, which fleshed out this revised Article 7. As a result, we know what the Commission thinks about how this should be handled, although we are still waiting for the Council’s opinion on this Commission communication. I assume that Parliament will be discussing it during the next session. As the Commissioner has already pointed out, the sixth building block we have is the Human Rights Agency. This is the outcome of a decision reached by the Council back in December. I am pleased that it has made a first step in the course of decision-making to be followed. I will contribute to this myself, as far as I am able to do so. Seventhly, this has also been mentioned, we will soon have a Constitution in which the article on values will be reinforced and in which the Charter will be included. That is all wonderful, but they are mere building blocks, and do not yet form a coherent whole. What we really need is a coherent human rights policy covering all goals, institutions, instruments and finances. Moreover, I should very much like clarity in the question as to what extent the human rights problems in one Member State are actually an issue for the European Union as a whole, so that countries and Member States, and we too, dare to call each other to account much more honestly than we have done to date. Let me once again say how delighted I am with the contributions by Mr Roche, on behalf of the presidency, and by Commissioner Vitorino.

Political group: PSE