Santer in firing line on human rights funding

Date: 12/11/1998

By Myles Neligan

EURO MPs have summoned European Commission President Jacques Santer to appear before them next week to answer questions about the institution's alleged mishandling of EU initiatives to promote human rights and democracy in eastern Europe.

The move reflects a growing backlash among MEPs against a Commission plan to withdraw financial support from the network of grass-roots projects it has funded since 1990, and instead channel the EU's 100-million-ecu human rights budget towards large intergovernmental organisations such as the Council of Europe.

“I hope the Commission will recognise the merits of the present system,” said British Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, who played a key role in setting up Union initiatives to support democracy in eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990.

“Any other course of action would be absurd. Building up a smoothly functioning civil society is best achieved by supporting grass-roots projects. The alternatives being proposed simply don't work,” he insisted.

Euro MPs are also expected to use Santer's appearance before the full Parliament, scheduled for next Monday (16 November), to criticise the Commission fiercely for administrative delays which may result in 17 million ecu from this year's budget going unspent.

Parliamentarians of all political hues are united in their condemnation. They are urging the Commission to scrap its planned overhaul of the system and to make up this year's budgetary shortfall by transferring the missing 17 million ecu from another part of the general EU budget.

Last week, the Parliament's foreign affairs committee provided an early indication of MEPs' dissatisfaction over the issue when it wrote to Santer accusing the Commission of “serious mismanagement” in its handling of EU democracy programmes.

Human rights groups have also condemned the move to redirect funds towards large intergovernmental organisations. “Of course it is good to build up contacts with these organisations, but why should they receive the relatively small sums that are set aside to support the vital work of non-governmental organisations?” asked Brigitte Ernst, director of the Amnesty International EU Association.

Santer is expected to reply to parliamentary criticism by arguing that under the proposed overhaul, EU support for small-scale projects would resume as soon as the Commission has set up an external agency to assess applications for human rights funding.

But critics retort that since formally establishing an external agency requires the agreement of MEPs and national governments, the process would take at least five years to complete, by which time many of the organisations currently receiving EU funding would have gone bankrupt.

They also argue that the European Human Rights Foundation, an expert body which has been contracted to assess applications since 1993 and is now facing closure, already fulfils the role of an external agency.