"Unfortunately, the 2006 report of the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna shows that the number of racist acts increased again last year by between 20 and 45 per cent depending on the Member State," said Parliament's rapporteur Martine Roure as she opened the hearing. "These alarming figures show the urgency of achieving a minimum harmonisation in Europe, to include a common definition of racist and xenophobic behaviour to be subject to criminal penalties which are effective, proportionate and have a deterrent effect." Commenting on the text currently under discussion in Council, she said "the current balance of the text, which specifies charges, allows certain well defined derogations and provides for judicial cooperation should be preserved."
Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE, FR), Chair of the Civil Liberties Committee, welcomed the presidency's decision to put the project for a framework decision back on the table. "It is a regret however that Parliament is only involved through the consultation procedure," he said.
"It is better to have a weak text than not having anything", said Ms Roure. The present text, as the outcome of long and difficult negotiations, had its weaknesses, she argued, and called for the Commission to propose a directive to accompany it, based on Article 13 of the Treaty, which allows the EU to take action to deal with discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age, disability or sexual orientation.
Punishing Holocaust denial?
Referring to the framework decision, Ms Roure spoke of the "necessity of including negationism." She said that she understood the need to respect each Member State's history and traditions, but "recent events, including in our own institution with Maciej Giertych's publication suggesting that the Third Reich did no more than shut Jews into the ghettos they had themselves created, show that we must redouble our efforts to ban this type of historical minimisation which is a veiled form of anti-Semitism." It would be, however, for each Member State to decide how to punish such acts.
Stavros Lambrinidis (PES, EL) said, on the other hand, that "freedom of speech is most important to be protected. There is no question that the Nazi genocide started with words and incitement to hatred but I wonder if sending some people to jail for their words would have saved us from the holocaust or rather would have transformed them into heroes. There should be a clear line to define what should be punished. In democracy, freedom of speech should always be protected, in any circumstances. I come from a country which suffered a dictatorship and I consider it very dangerous to allow anybody to judge what can be said and what cannot".
Isil Gachet (Council of Europe) said that freedom of expression and banning racist speeches are not in contradiction and that there is a way of making them compatible. She said that article 10 of the European convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of speech but it also defines limits, which include racist speeches and incitation of hatred or intolerance.
Lack of statistics
Joe Goodey and Niraj Nathwani from the EU Fundamental Rights Agency complained that the lack of appropriate data collection by Member States made it very difficult to compare information about racism or incitement to hatred, although NGOs reports show that "all Member States" have problems of racism. Mr Nathwani said that just 14 EU countries had legislation specifying racist motivation as an aggravating factor in sentencing, but only in 5 was there data to show the provision was generally applied. On incitement to racial violence and hatred, provisions existed in all Member States but only 14 have data showing that they apply them.
Sophia In’t Veld (ALDE, NL) said that “legislation is important but not sufficient. Action by the Council and Member States is pathetic. I see many examples of racism and homophobia - like the recent example in Poland - where the EU countries close their eyes. I also find remarkable the lack of reaction from MEPs to the recent anti-Semitic publication by Maciej Giertych.”
The rapporteur on a future directive on equal treatment, Kathalijne Buitenweg (Greens/EFA, NL), said that one of her main conclusions “is that law already exists but people are not aware of it (…) Less than half of the Europeans are aware that national laws exist and of what can they do when they feel discriminated against”.
