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for a Multiannual Framework of the Fundamental Rights Agency - 29 November 2007

The European Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) presents to the members of the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE) the following observations concerning the Committee’s debate on the Multiannual Framework for the European Fundamental Rights Agency:

Having regard to

· the Council Regulation establishing a European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights,

· the Commission’s Proposal for a Council Decision implementing Regulation (EC) No 168/2007 as regards the adoption of a Multiannual Framework for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights for 2007-2012,

· the Draft Report on this proposal submitted by MEP Michael Cashman,

· EWLA’s First Comments (of 25 April 2006) regarding the establishment of a European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, EWLA General Assembly Resolution (of 20 May 2006) on the Future of Europe and Fundamental Rights, and its contribution to the first public consultation launched by the Fundamental Rights Agency in April/May 2007,

· and drawing on the 12 contributions of EWLA to the Convention, its 3 appeals to the Intergovernmental Conference of 2004 regarding the Draft Constitutional Treaty, its Resolutions on the Future of Europe of 2005 and 2006, its Position ? “Time of Reflection” on the Future of Europe (of 6 December 2005), and its General Assembly Resolution on the Future of the Constitutional Framework of the European Union of (of 12 May 2007),

EWLA welcomes

· the LIBE Committee’s important work in the fields of human rights and its concern to ensure that the Fundamental Rights Agency take up its work soon;

· the draft report, in particular the rapporteur’s emphasis on the indivisibility of all human rights, i.e. the equal status and interrelatedness of civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic and social rights, on the other, and which encompasses the full equality of women in the exercise of all these rights. This understanding is also reflected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Therefore, EWLA emphasises that

· the respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms are the foundation of the EU and form part of the common constitutional traditions of the EU member states;

· these fundamental rights and freedoms include the rights enumerated in the EU Fundamental Rights Charter, as proclaimed in Nice, as well as the rights laid down in the European treaties and elaborated by case law of the ECJ, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter;

· all EU institutions are bound, by Article 3(2) EC, to actively promote gender equality, and hence have to apply a gender perspective when examining the respect for all human rights by EU acts or by the member states implementing EU law;
Consequently, EWLA proposes to amend the Commission proposal so reflect the FRA’s task of addressing all thematic issues from a human rights perspective, the indivisibility of human rights by including economic and social rights, and the horizontal objective of achieving gender equality, as is recognized in Council Regulation 168/2007, 10th recital. This can be achieved by the following:

· the preamble (new recital 7 b) should also contain an explicit reference to gender equality;

· Article 2 should be amended

o by a new second paragraph reading “The Agency must approach all thematic areas from a human rights perspective. The Agency must also bear in mind the horizontal objective of achieving gender equality”;

o by a new lit. k) “social rights, especially with respect to employment”;

o in lit. c), the term “citizens” should be replaced by “persons” so as to reflect the human rights obligation of the Union and its member states to protect all persons subject to their jurisdiction, irrespective of their nationality;

· In Article 3 para. 3, the first sentence should be replaced by “The Agency shall deal with the issues relating to gender discrimination as a part of, and to the extent relevant to its work to be undertaken on the general thematic issues enumerated in Article 2. In doing so, it shall take into account the overall objectives of the European Institute for Gender Equality (. . .).”

EWLA would like to thank the LIBE Committee members for taking into account these proposals, which would bring the Multiannual Framework in line with the acquis communautaire and all the fundamental rights that constitute the foundations of the European Union.

Statement Nov 2007 Statement on Commission Proposal for a Multiannual Framework for a Fundamental Right Agency