Funding row hits human rights plans

Date: 29/10/1998

By Myles Neligan

HUMAN rights campaigners are warning that many vital projects to promote democracy and human rights in eastern Europe may be cancelled if the European Commission fails to resolve an internal dispute over funding.

The conflict centres on how applications for EU money to promote such schemes should be evaluated. If it is not settled within the next two weeks, 17 million ecu of the Union's human rights budget for 1998 is likely to be withheld.

Human rights campaigners say that the affair, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations declaration on human rights, will gravely damage the Union's reputation in the region.

“This could seriously undermine the EU's efforts to promote human rights in eastern Europe. Many groups may have to abandon their work. It is absolutely appalling,” said Lotte Leicht, director of the Brussels-based lobby group Human Rights Watch.

Programmes to rehabilitate victims of torture, initiatives to establish free media and monitoring projects would be amongst those directly affected.

If the Commission does not formally earmark the outstanding 17 million ecu for specific human rights projects by 15 November, the money will be reabsorbed into the 1999 general budget. Human rights organisations managing projects in eastern Europe would then not receive any of the cash.

The money has not been formally committed because senior Commission officials who favour a major reform of the procedure for selecting projects have blocked moves to renew the institution's annual contract with the European Human Rights Foundation, an expert body which has carried out the project assessment procedure every year since 1980.

The EHRF won a competitive tender in May, but its contract has still not been finalised. Its effective suspension means that no eligible projects have been approved.

“Organisations working to promote human rights and democracy should not be made to bear the brunt of these administrative problems,” said German Green MEP Edith Müller.