Giscard text branded “weak” on links with neighbours

Date: 03/07/03

By David Cronin

PROVISIONS on links with neighbouring countries in the proposed EU constitution have been branded "weak" by a new European Parliament report.

The text handed over by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, chairman of the future of Europe Convention, to EU leaders at last month's Thessaloniki summit, advocates that the enlarged EU "shall develop a special relationship" with states bordering it by concluding agreements based on reciprocal rights.

But a paper due to be discussed by the Parliament's foreign affairs committee next week (7-8 July) claims that article is too restrictive. The report's author, Italian Socialist Pasqualina Napoletano, urges the member states to make it bolder, during their talks on a final constitution text, this autumn.

She says that the EU should be devising a strategy to create a "shared area of freedom, democracy and rights" stretching from Russia to Morocco. A first step towards achieving this, she suggests, could involve developing one or more multilateral agreements based on the human rights clauses contained in the association and cooperation accords that the EU negotiates with outside countries.

"Such [multilateral] agreements could be based on institutions entitled to receive appeals and punish violations [of human rights]," her report states.

On Tuesday (1 July), the European Commission announced it is due to launch a series of "neighbourhood programmes" next year, aimed at boosting the Union's cooperation with countries on the other side of its prospective 10,000 kilometres of borders with ex-Soviet, Balkan and Mediterranean states.

A report by MEP, Pasqualina Napoletano, due to be discussed on 7-8 July is expected to criticise the European Convention's provisions on links with neighbouring countries.

http://europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+S-RAP+0+FORM+HTML+V0//EN http://europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+S-RAP+0+FORM+HTML+V0//EN

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