Debate: Situation of Fundamental Rights in the European Union – Annual Report for the years -
Date: TUESDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2020
Speaker: Clare Daly
Country: France
Language: EN

There’s no doubt about it. The Charter is an important document which contains rights which, if implemented, would allow all citizens to achieve their full potential and lead a dignified life. But we have to be honest about it: we’re a million miles away from that situation. Awareness of the Charter is low, there’s a total lack of integration in economic and political priorities, and even worse, in a whole number of Member States, fundamental rights are being attacked and undermined. So this report was an opportunity to step back, look at what’s going on and ask ourselves why. I’m very glad that we managed to hold on to a strong economic and social rights section at the start because, while fundamental rights are absolute in theory, if you don’t have a stable roof over your head or access to education or healthcare, well then you can only dream about having your rights protected. I’m glad that the report acknowledges the impact on inequality of cuts in public expenditure, but I’m sorry we couldn’t call it by its right name: austerity. I’m glad about the points about sexual and reproductive rights, about the pushbacks and the criminalisation of humanitarian action. But while acknowledging that, I deeply regret the weakness in this report because of our failure to come together and call out abuses and name countries – a shyness which is not replicated when we talk about countries outside of the EU. We have the absurdity now of a fundamental rights report where we’re not allowed to mention a country, not even in the body of the text, not even in a footnote if it comes from the Council of Europe and it has the name of a country in its title. Colleagues, this is utter madness. George Orwell said, ‘if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’. It is obvious that there are people in here who do not want to hear about Catalonia, and I am not surprised because it is an indictment on the Spanish State and the EU. But it’s a good example of the problem with this report because, instead of calling it out, as the Council of Europe has, we have a fundamental rights report that deals with freedom of expression, where the explanatory statement has been expunged for having the audacity to mention the fact that there are parliamentarians in prison with sentences of over 10 years for organising a democratic plebiscite. I’m sorry now but, if that doesn’t equal what the report condemns as the use of a judicial system for political purposes to silence an opposition, well I don’t know what does. But the big Groups didn’t want that. They couldn’t handle the truth so, after the committee vote, nine months after the explanatory statement was published, this statement, which was never voted upon, had to be banned. And you know I feel a bit like the author of  So fundamental rights should transcend self—interest and political game-playing. They should be the great equaliser, no matter who you are or what country you are. If we ignore that, it only leads us into a cul-de-sac of a fundamental rights report that deals with whistle-blowers and freedom of the press, but fails to mention Julian Assange and the dangerous precedent if the Trump Administration succeeds in its efforts to extradite him to the US and face 175 years in a high-security prison for journalism in the EU. The biggest press-freedom case of our generation and we are silent. I voted on this report going to plenary in the hope that sense would prevail and it would be improved here and issues like that put back. But if it’s not, I have no hesitation in voting against this report because it’s better that we would have no report than a weak or a hypocritical report. Maybe then we face the truth that, for all our talk about fundamental rights, we have had people on the streets of Bulgaria for months against a corrupt ruling party, fat on EU money. We have migrants left to rot and fester in camps, while boats of pregnant women and children are pushed out to sea by state forces in Greece. We have migrants raped with the branches of trees by state forces in Croatia. We have Muslims hounded in France. And, yes, we have parliamentarians in prison in Spain. So this is your Europe, and the choice is clear. We either waffle on in generalities about fundamental rights or we have the Charter implemented. Ten years on, I’m very clear what side I’m on.