Row looms over status of Union’s ‘bill of rights’

Date: 09/12/1999

By Gareth Harding

EU GOVERNMENTS and MEPs look set to start talks on a charter of fundamental rights with widely-differing views on what status it should have.

The European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee favours making the charter legally binding, but the Finnish presidency has warned MEPs that most EU governments would prefer a non-binding declaration of principles.

Union leaders have set a December 2000 deadline for completing work on the charter, but left open the question of whether it should eventually be integrated into the Union treaties.

The Parliament's rapporteurs on the issue, UK Liberal Andrew Duff and Austrian Green Johannes Voggenhuber, say the drafting group should "decide at the outset to make the charter mandatory" and next year's Intergovernmental Conference should make provisions for incorporating it into the EU treaty. They also argue against restricting the scope of the bill of rights to those areas where the Union has exclusive competence.

But member states are reluctant to extend the charter to apply to all EU institutions and policy areas such as defence and law and order issues.

The drafting body will meet for the first time next Friday (17 December) to elect a president and try to define the groups' remit.

EU governments and MEPs look set to start talks on a charter of fundamental rights with widely-differing views on what status it should have.