EU ministers wrangle over rights charter

By Robin Oakley, CNN.com European Political Editor

BIARRITZ, France (CNN) -- European Union leaders at the Biarritz summit will on Saturday wrangle over a controversial new Charter of Fundamental Rights for European citizens that sets out to summarise all the rights held by any EU citizen.

Some leaders are greeting the charter as a first step towards a European constitution.

But others, worried that it might be used by the European Court of Human Justice to inform court rulings which would interfere with national laws, insist it is no more than a showcase of existing rights.

Countries like the United Kingdom, who have led the fight to minimise the charter, insist that it is and will remain a political declaration without the force of law.

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On Friday, Nicole Fontaine, the President of the European Parliament, used her traditional summit speech to the EU leaders to greet the charter as "a milestone in the history of the union."

She said it gave the EU greater legitimacy, answered critics who said its institutions had too much power and set out the fundamental values that held the EU members together.

She also urged them to make the charter legally binding, although she acknowledged the controversial nature of that proposal by saying: "I am aware that certain of you are less than completely convinced on this point."

Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, has already argued that it was inevitable that the charter would in due course become a legally binding treaty amendment for the EU.

But the British have only signed up to the charter on the basis that it does not become legally binding.

Keith Vaz, the British Minister for Europe, has said that the charter's articles have no more legal validity than a copy of the Beano comic or the UK's Sun newspaper.

The 54 articles of the charter set out rights including the right to life, respect for privacy and family life, the protection of personal data, equality between the sexes, and the right to a life of dignity for the elderly.

Some of the more controversial economic and social rights inserted at the insistence of the French include rights to collective wage bargaining, the right to strike, and rights to worker consultation and to fair working conditions.

In its original form the charter was opposed by the Confederation of British Industry in the UK and it is still criticised by Dieter Hundt, chairman of the German Employers Federation.

But the British government withdrew earlier objections after securing amendments to the text limiting the right to strike and the right for workers to be consulted only to those "at all appropriate levels."

British government spokesmen insisted in Biarritz on Friday that the charter does not assert any new legal rights. Nor, they said, does it confer any new powers on EU authorities as claimed in sections of the British media.

The group of 63 who drew up the Charter included 15 representatives of heads of state or government, one representative of the European Commission, 16 members of the European Parliament and 30 members of national parliaments.

It is the first document of its kind ever produced by such a process in the European Union.

The EU leaders will discuss the Charter on Saturday morning before it is presented for final approval at the Nice summit in December.

From CNN.com Europe

U.K. snoop law may conflict with EU Human Rights Act
October 5, 2000

European Union

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