 VIENNA - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso inaugurated a new EU Fundamental Rights Agency on Thursday in Vienna to advise on European Union legislation.
| Fundamental rights are kinda like Human Rights, only they're more... ummm... fundmental. |
But the new agency, which replaces and extends the scope of the current Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) founded in 1998, will be limited to collecting and analysing data on states’ observance and application of EU legislation. “A Europe that only monitored the most serious disease of racism and xenophobia -- the two shames that made the EUMC necessary -- would, in today’s world, be doing only half the work needed to promote and protect fundamental rights,” EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said at the inauguration ceremony.
| I thought governments had that responsibility, but this is Y'urp we're discussing ... |
The result of long negotiations started in 2003 by the 25 EU members and concluded in December, the agency, with its 80 to 100 staff, will have limited powers and lack the authority to file suits against states or examine individual complaints.
| Little to do except enjoy lunch and look important. |
The EU 25 also decided it could not intervene in matters of judicial and police cooperation between states -- arguably the area in which it could have done the most work -- following strong opposition from Britain and Germany especially.
The agency’s expertise will instead be used in implementing Union policies -- on the common market and transport for example -- where there are discrimination and racism issues, in the 27 current EU members. The EU’s new agency will work above all in the legislation preparation phase, Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik said while Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer added it will have an advisory duty so that “fundamental rights do not suffer because of tensions caused by the fight against terrorism.”
| Because terrorists have fundamental rights too, you know. |
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