The Commission for citizens’ liberties and rights, justice and internal affairs of the European Parliament is discussing this week the draft report of the Dutch sociologist Joke Swiebel on the situation of fundamental rights in the European Union for the year 2001. The report, annually commissioned by the EP, is aimed at providing a general review of the performance of the individual member states in the protection of fundamental rights. The draft resolution tackles individually the six chapters according to the scheme of the Charter of fundamental rights of the EU: dignity (right to life, prohibition of torture and inhumane treatment, prohibition of slavery and forced labour); freedom (freedom of thought, of conscience and of religion, freedom of expression and of information, right to asylum and protection in case of forced expatriation, expulsion or extradition); equality (policy of combating discrimination, racism and xenophobia, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, equality between the sexes, discrimination based on sexual orientation, or types of relationship, rights of the child, rights of the elderly, rights of the disabled); solidarity; citizenship (right to vote and right to be elected in municipal elections and elections to the European Parliament, freedom of circulation and residence); justice. Particularly controversial are the proposals relating to the family: the author of the report “recommends member states to recognize non-matrimonial relationships both between persons of different sex and between persons of the same sex and to grant to them the same rights as marriage. She also “invites member states to take into consideration the possibility of permitting marriage between persons of the same sex” and “urges the EU to include in its political agenda the reciprocal recognition of non-matrimonial relationships and marriage between persons of the same sex and to draw up specific proposals to this end”. MEPs have presented no less than 124 amendments to the initial report, so the process of approving the final draft could be particularly long. The plenary assembly of the Commission of the episcopates of the European Community, meeting in Brussels on 28 and 29 (cf. report on p. 2), was presented with a preview of the report. The European bishops reaffirmed the importance of defending the family based on marriage and stressed that it is the function neither of the European Parliament nor of states to transform its nature.
