MEPs want to monitor repression outside Union

Date: 21/04/05

MEPs will next week express disappointment with plans to restrict the scope of the EU's fundamental rights agency to monitoring repression solely within the Union's borders.

In its annual report on human rights worldwide, the European Parliament urges that the remit of the Vienna-based agency be extended to cover countries outside the EU. At the very least, it says, the agency should keep track of the human rights situation in countries recognised as candidates for EU membership and in participants in the European Neighbourhood Programme. These include Ukraine, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Morocco and Moldova.

Drafted by Irish MEP Simon Coveney, the report also recommends that the agency should develop "institutionalised co-operation" with the 46-country Council of Europe. Earlier this year, the Council's Secretary-General Terry Davis voiced fears of a duplication between the work of his organisation, which undertakes extensive human rights monitoring throughout the continent, and the new agency.

The European Commission suggested in a paper last year that the agency should limit its focus to the Union's member states. The EU executive will present its proposal for how the agency will function on 25 May.

A Commission spokesman described as speculation Coveney's claim that the agency would probably have a restricted geographical scope and said he could not comment further.

Coveney's paper also says that the EU should maintain the embargo on weapons sales to China until the Beijing authorities improve their track record on human rights. He says he is alarmed by reports that China carries out more executions than any other country.

Preview of a debate at the European Parliament of the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2004 and the EU's policy on the matter, 27 April 2005. A report drafted by Irish MEP Simon Coveney for the Foreign Affairs Committee urges the EU to extend the scope of its new Fundamental Rights Agency beyond the EU's borders and that the agency should develop 'institutionalised co-operation' with the 46-country Council of Europe to avoid duplication of work.

• Primary Source

European Parliament: Report (A6-0086/2005) - Human rights in the world and the EU's policy http://europarl.europa.eu/omk/sipade2?L=EN&OBJID=95245&LEVEL=3&MODE=SIP&NAV=X&LSTDOC=N

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