7-11 April European Parliament plenary session

Date: 17/04/1997

MEPs supported moves to use the Intergovernmental Conference on EU reform to strengthen the protection of human rights in the Union. They called on the IGC to make specific changes to Union law which would give individuals greater scope to challenge decisions before the European Court of Justice and enable the EU to sign up to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. In addition, the Parliament said the constitutional negotiations should extend the existing ban on discrimination on grounds of nationality to other areas such as race, age and sex. In their annual assessment of respect for human rights in the Union, MEPs championed the idea of a European Declaration of Fundamental Rights in which economic, social, cultural and ecological rights would be firmly established.

THE new spirit of cooperation between the European Commission and the Court of Auditors, and the Commission's own attempts to introduce a new financial and management culture in its own ranks, won the approval of MEPs. So too did the Commission's decision to indicate how much money was owed to the Union after errors had been detected in the annual accounts. But, in giving its formal discharge to the EU's 1994 budget, the Parliament called on the Commission to provide further details of its plans to achieve tighter financial control of agricultural policy. MEPs also repeated their demand for more staff and resources to be deployed to monitor the reform of EU fruit and vegetable policy.

UNION governments came in for criticism from the Parliament for their failure to complete the single market by approving legislation on company law, corporate taxation, the free movement of people, cross-border payments and the full liberalisation of the transport and energy markets. They were also accused of failing to implement fully EU measures already agreed on public procurement, banking services and the recognition of diplomas, and of not enforcing the application of Union rules on air transport, chemicals and telecommunications equipment. MEPs gave their general approval to the Commission's SLIM programme to simplify internal market legislation, but insisted that it now be extended to areas of direct interest to business and citizens: the distribution of financial services, public procurement and the marketing of dangerous substances. Such an approach, said the report's author, Irish Union for Europe MEP Brian Crowley, would make the single market real and understandable to European citizens.

THE Parliament insisted that there should be a complete ban on the marketing of any cosmetics which have been tested on animals from January next year. MEPs argued that the deadline would act as an incentive to the industry to develop alternative non-animal tests and pointed out that the 8,000 ingredients already available to the cosmetics industry could continue to be used to develop new products.

THE decision was taken to establish a special temporary committee to monitor implementation of measures approved by the Parliament in February designed to prevent any reoccurrence of the crisis sparked by fears of a risk to human health from mad cow disease.