01_EU_overview

On the initiative of the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, the EU member states have therefore decided:

•to invest more in research and innovation;

•to give the European Commission a greater role as coordinator in order to give

support to member states, particularly through the dissemination of ‘best practice’ in Europe;

• to speed up reforms in the financial markets and in social security systems and accelerate liberalisation of the telecommunications and energy sectors.

Europe in 12 lessons

Europe in 12 lessons

Finally, the Amsterdam Treaty improved the EU policy of transparency and allowed citizens greater access to the official documents of the European institutions.

The European Union’s commitment to citizens’ rights was reaffirmed in Nice in December 2000 with the solemn proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This Charter was drawn up by a Convention composed of members of national parliaments, MEPs, representatives of national governments and a member of the European Commission. Under six headings — Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens’ Rights and Justice — its 54 articles set out the European Union’s fundamental values and the civil, political, economic and social rights of EU citizens.

The opening articles cover human dignity, the right to life, the right to the ‘integrity of the person’ and the right to freedom of expression and of conscience. The chapter on solidarity brings together, in an innovative way, social and economic rights such as:

•the right to strike;

•the right of workers to be informed and consulted;

•the right to reconcile family life and professional life;

•the right to healthcare, social security and social assistance throughout the European Union.

The Charter also promotes equality between men and women and introduces rights such as data protection, a ban on eugenic practices and the reproductive cloning of human beings, the right to environmental protection, the rights of children and elderly people and the right to good administration.

IV. Europe means education and culture

A sense of belonging together and having a common destiny cannot be manufactured. It can only arise from a shared cultural awareness, which is why Europe now needs to focus its attention not just on economics but also on education, citizenship and culture.

The EU’s educational and training programmes are one element in this. They promote exchange programmes so students can go abroad, participate in joint school activities across borders and learn new languages, etc. It is still decided at national or local level how schools and education are organised and what the exact curriculum is.

In the field of culture, the EU programmes ‘Culture’ and ‘Media’ foster cooperation between programme makers, promoters, broadcasters and artists from different countries. This helps to produce more European TV programmes and films, thereby redressing the balance between European and American output.

V. The Ombudsman and the right to petition

To help bring the EU closer to its citizens, the Treaty on European Union created the post of Ombudsman. The European Parliament appoints the Ombudsman, who remains in office for the duration of the Parliament. The Ombudsman’s role is to investigate complaints against EU institutions and bodies. Complaints may be brought by any EU citizen and by any person or organisation living or based in an EU member country. The Ombudsman tries to arrange an amicable settlement between the complainant and the institution or body concerned.

Another important link between citizens and the EU institutions is the right of any person residing in a member state to petition the European Parliament.

Europe in 12 lessons

European citizens are entitled to live in freedom, without fear of persecution or violence, anywhere in the European Union. Yet international crime and terrorism are among the main concerns of Europeans today.

Integration in the field of justice and home affairs was not envisaged in the Treaty establishing the European Community. However, as time went by, it became clear that freedom of movement had to mean giving everyone, everywhere in the EU, the same protection and the same access to justice. So an area of freedom, security and justice was created gradually over the years through amendments to the original Treaties under the Single European Act, the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty) and the Amsterdam Treaty.

I. Free movement

The free movement of people within the EU raises security issues for the member governments, since they no longer control internal EU borders. To compensate for this, extra security measures have to be put in place at the EU’s external borders. Moreover, since criminals can also exploit freedom of movement within the EU, national police forces and judicial authorities have to work together to combat cross-border crime.

One of the most important moves to make life easier for travellers in the European Union took place in 1985, when the governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed an agreement

in a small Luxembourg border town called Schengen. They agreed to abolish all checks on people, regardless of nationality, at their shared borders, to harmonise controls at their borders with non-EU countries and to introduce a common policy on visas. They thus formed an area without internal frontiers known as the Schengen Area.

The Schengen package and the secondary legislation derived from it have since become an integral part of the EU Treaties, and the Schengen Area has gradually expanded. By 2006, 13 EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden), together with nonEU countries Iceland and Norway, were fully implementing the Schengen rules.

When 10 new countries joined in 2004, they were given seven years to fulfil the criteria for membership of the Schengen Area.

II. Asylum and immigration policy

Europe is proud of its humanitarian tradition of welcoming foreigners and offering asylum to refugees fleeing danger and persecution. Today, EU governments face the pressing question of how to deal with rising numbers of immigrants, both legal and illegal, in an area without internal frontiers.

EU governments have agreed to harmonise their rules so that applications for asylum can be processed in accordance with a set of basic principles uniformly recognised throughout the European Union. In 1999, they set themselves the goal of adopting a common asylum procedure and giving equal status throughout the Union to persons who have been granted asylum. Some technical measures were adopted, such as minimum standards for the admission of asylum-seek- ers and for the granting of refugee status.

A European Fund for Refugees was established, with a budget of €114 million a year. Despite this large-scale cooperation between national governments, a true EU asylum and immigration policy still has to be put in place.

III. Fighting international crime and terrorism

To make an asylum and immigration policy viable, the EU must have an effective system for managing migration flows, carrying out checks at its external borders and preventing illegal immigration. A coordinated effort is needed to combat criminal gangs who run people-trafficking networks and who exploit vulnerable human beings, particularly women and children.

Organised crime is becoming ever more sophisticated and regularly uses European or international networks for its activities. Terrorism has clearly shown that it can strike, with great brutality, anywhere in the world.

This is why the Schengen information system (SIS) was set up. This is a complex database which enables police forces and judicial authorities to exchange information on people for whom an arrest warrant or extradition request has been issued, and on stolen property such as vehicles or works of art.

One of the best ways of catching criminals is to track their ill-gotten gains. For this reason, and to cut off the funding of criminal and terrorist organisations, the EU has brought in legislation to prevent money laundering.

The greatest advance made in recent years in the field of cooperation between law enforcement authorities was the creation of Europol, an EU body based in The Hague and staffed by police and customs officers. It tackles a wide range of international crime: drug trafficking, trade in stolen vehicles, people trafficking and illegal immigration networks, the sexual exploitation of women and children, pornography, forgery, the trafficking of radioactive and nuclear material, terrorism, money-laundering and counterfeiting the euro.

IV. Towards a ‘European judicial area’

At present, many different judicial systems operate side by side in the European Union, each within national borders. If the Union wants its people to share the same concept of justice, its justice system must make their daily lives easier rather than more complicated.

The most significant example of practical cooperation in this field is the work done by Eurojust, a central coordinating structure established in The Hague in 2003. Its purpose is to enable the national investigating and prosecuting authorities to work together on criminal investigations involving several EU countries.

The European arrest warrant, operational since January 2004, is intended to replace long extradition procedures.

International crime and terrorism do not respect national boundaries. This means that a common EU criminal justice policy is required, since cooperation between the courts in different countries can be hampered by their differing definitions of certain criminal acts. The objective is to give the EU a common framework for fighting terrorism, so as to guarantee its citizens a high level of protection and step up international cooperation in this area.

In the area of civil law, the EU has adopted legislation to facilitate the application of court rulings in cross-border cases involving divorce, separation, child custody and maintenance claims so that judgments in one country are applicable in another. The EU has established common procedures to simplify and speed up the settlement of crossborder cases in small and uncontested civil claims like debt recovery and bankruptcy.

Europe in 12 lessons