WRITTEN QUESTION E-2019/98

by Edith Müller (V) to the Commission

(30 June 1998)

Subject: Budget expenditure on human rights

1. In the budget for the 1999 financial year the separate heading for a Special Programme for Democracy in Nigeria (EUR 3 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 1,5 million in payment appropriations in 1998) has disappeared. Has the amount allocated in 1998 been spent? If so, on what activities? If not, why not? What programmes are envisaged by the Commission and how are these to be implemented?

2. What steps has the Commission taken to establish the European Agency for Human Rights and Democratization, as referred to in the report by Mrs Lenz on setting up a single coordinating structure within the European Commission responsible for human rights and democratization (A4-0393/97) adopted at the end of last year? Will this agency be established within and monitored by the Commission and when is it due to start its activities?

3. In the budget for the 1999 financial year the heading inserted by Parliament (EUR 2 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 1 million in payment appropriations in 1998) on support for election processes (B7-709) has been reduced to a "p.m.". Why is this so? What steps has the Commission taken to implement this budget heading? If no activities were undertaken, what was the reason for this? What are the Commission's plans for the future?

Answer given by Mr van den Broek on behalf of the Commission

(21 September 1998)

1. The Commission has not proposed a separate budget line for Nigeria, but included the financing of activities for this country in the budget line B7-7020"Democratisation, human rights in developing countries", where the amount has been increased from ECU 17 million to ECU 20 million. The Commission has not yet spent the ECU 3 million foreseen in 1998, nor committed them. It has collected projects to be financed and started the decision making process. The Commission intends to commit the entire credit despite the delays resulting from the May 1998 Court of justice ruling in Case 106/96. The Commission decided in July 1998 to rescind the suspension of all human rights budget lines which had resulted from the ruling. It is therefore only from July that the Commission has once more had the power to take decisions on the use of this budget.

2. The possible adoption of a European network for human rights as suggested in the report of Mrs Lenz requires careful preparation and doubtless a competition process to determine the organisation which would assist in its implementation. The recommendation that there should be more extensive recourse to the internet for human rights co-ordination is noted and will certainly be followed by the Commission.

The separate proposal by Mrs Lenz of a structure internal to the Commission to coordinate human rights and democratisation activity was responded to at some length by a member of the Commission on 18 December 1997 at the plenary session of the Parliament. The Commission has sought to maintain unity of competence and management of resources at a geographical level while actively pursuing co-ordination. The responsible Commissioner has been assigned responsibility for the thematic and horizontal aspects of the subject and uses both a steering committee and a human rights inderdepartmental group to improve the coherence of human rights strategy globally.

3. The "token entry" for budget year 1999 is in line with the general approach towards streamlining the structure of the budget (deletion of small headings), insofar as the activities envisaged for budgetary year 1998 against heading B7-709 may also be covered from the appropriations entered in Chapter B-8 Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

Since the budget comments for 1998 were published, the Commission has repeatedly approached the subcommittee on human rights for clarification on the comments of budget line B7-709 imposing the condition that an inter-institutional agreement be concluded and stressing the need to unblock the budget line B7-709 quickly. On these occasions the Commission has learnt that the Parliament has to date not agreed on a detailed proposal on the content of a inter-institutional agreement.

At the same time the Commission has systematically informed the human rights subcommittee about how it intended to use the budget line concerned. It was to be used for horizontal actions to prepare election support missions and to improve the readiness for election monitoring and supervision by implementation of training activities, activities aiming to professionalize legally and logistically a European approach by setting up intervention units capable of rapid deployment.

Given the financial volume of specific actions of election monitoring or supervision missions, these should continue to be financed under the relevant geographic Community instruments, where appropriate in support of common security and foreign policy (CSFP) joint actions.