Ethnic census

20.1.2004

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0199/04
by Giacomo Santini (PPE-DE)
to the Commission

The European Commission has launched Community infringements proceedings against the Italian State with regard to the application, in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, of rules relating to the ethnic census that are considered to conflict with the Treaty on European Union. The grounds for these proceedings include serious violations of the privacy of citizens, who are obliged to declare, alongside their names, the ethnic group to which they belong and to supply other cultural and political information relating to their persons. The compulsory nature of this declaration is also considered to entail violations of the principles of non-discrimination and equal opportunities, proclaimed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for citizens belonging to ethnic groups and different cultures or religions and speaking different languages.

 

In the light of the above and since the whole process of integration and cohesion in the European Union is based on the principle of mutual dialogue and the dismantling of differences and that formal notice was served to the Italian State on 10 December 2003, with a hearing on 15 January 2004, can the Commission state:

 

1. What violations of the Treaty provide the grounds for the Community infringement proceedings?

 

2. Why the proceedings were suspended and postponed for three months, who requested this suspension and on what grounds?

 

3. Whether it is true that Austria exerted significant pressure on the Commission, via the political apparatus and diplomatic sources, to secure that suspension?

 

4. How it views the anti-historical presumption of a tutelary role for Austria in Alto Adige/South Tyrol (Italian territory) based on the obsolete Treaty of Paris?

 

5. Whether it can foresee a reversal of the decision to postpone proceedings, with these continuing in accordance with the time limits and procedures laid down, which are equitable to all?