Duff Proposes New Civil and Political Rights in EU Charter

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 20th Jun 2000

Andrew Duff MEP has tabled a number of important amendments to the draft EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which are to be debated by the drafting Convention on Tuesday 20 June. Notably, these concern:

• new articles asserting the principles of democracy and ecology

• strengthening an existing draft clause on open government

• safeguarding the position of national minorities

• improving the treatment of asylum seekers

Mr Duff, who is the constitutional spokesman of the European Liberal Democrats and co-rapporteur of the European Parliament on the Charter, is also to repeat his request for the Convention to adopt a formal decision-making procedure - involving qualified majority voting - rather than sticking rigidly to its attempt to achieve consensus on everything.

In his statement of today Andrew Duff says:

"It is important for the Convention to supplement the traditional European Convention on Human Rights with an articulation of the principles that are basic to contemporary European society.

"The Charter must resonate with European public opinion today and tomorrow if it is to command the loyalty of the citizen.

"This means we must give everyone the right to a democratic form of government, to have the ecological principle of sustainable development assimilated in the new system of governance of the European Union, and to know what is going on within the EU authorities.

"Equally, the right of national, regional and cultural minorities must be protected by law. This may usually be taken for granted within the existing member states of the EU, but is a less accepted fundamental right in some of the candidate countries.

"I am also trying to modernise the concept of family to include same sex partnerships and to enhance respect for those who choose to establish a family outside formal marriage ties."

The relevant Duff amendments are numbers 46 (ecology), 227 (partnerships), 276 & 434 (minorities), 344 (open government), 403 (rights of asylum seekers), 495 (democracy), 545 (diplomatic protection), 596 (extension of citizenship).

ENDS/ Editors' Note Andrew Duff is Liberal Democrat MEP for Eastern England and is the ELDR Constitutional Affairs Spokesman. He is the Parliament's co-rapporteur on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and a member of the Convention

For the text of the draft Charter and amendments, see http://ue.eu.int/en/summ.htm