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Lisbon Treaty (No. 3)

We have had a great deal of discussion of the charter of fundamental rights. I am not sure that I can add substantially to it, other than to say that I believe it brings existing rights together and makes them more visible, as the charter says, drawing them from a variety of different sources—civil, political, economic and social. Although we have the protocol, there is nothing in the charter itself that we could realistically object to. Indeed, it would do a great deal to strengthen our rights in this country, and I would like to see it in force in the United Kingdom, even though the protocol ensures that it does not apply. As it is drawn, the charter applies only in relation to European Union law or action taken under the treaty. Although the charter is made legally binding by the treaty, that is only in the context of European law. It contains not just rights but aspirational principles. The Fundamental Rights Agency has the job of monitoring compliance with the charter. The agency emerged in 2003 under the Italian presidency and was drawn from the existing Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. Much of its residual experience is drawn from that and that is reflected in the future work pattern of the Fundamental Rights Agency. The agency was negotiated under the UK presidency as a first-pillar agency under article 308 of the Nice treaty. Its duty is to enforce the charter of fundamental rights and, although other human rights instruments could inform its work, the FRA cannot actually enforce them. Its job is to monitor member states and EU institutions. It is also its job to monitor accession states but only after accession has been completed, which is a problem. I may be wrong, but I do not think that the charter and the FRA are taken into account during the negotiations for accession. This happens only after an accession agreement has been signed. That reflects a gap in the effectiveness of the agency and the charter. A much stronger lever could have been provided in the accession processes for Bulgaria and Romania, for example, where significant human rights issues needed to be addressed before the accession process was completed. That is doubly so in the case of Turkey where significant human rights issues have to be addressed before the accession process is completed. There has much debate about why we should have the charter—and, indeed, the FRA—when we already have the European convention on human rights and the Council of Europe, but until the EU accedes to the European convention, however, there is no monitoring of EU institutions for human rights compliance without the FRA. The agency can ultimately look at the gap in performance between the EU institutions such as the Commission and the Parliament.