Letter to The Guardian

Written by Sarah Ludford MEP on Mon 30th Jun 2008

The Editor,

The Guardian

Dear Sir,

Your Rome correspondent Tom Kington has documented the assaults on justice being perpetrated, to no-one's surprise, by the new government of Silvio Berlusconi, most recently Unicef among critics of Italian plan to fingerprint Roma children, June 27th and MPs to give Berlusconi temporary immunity, June 28th).

These abuses come despite the fact that the government includes as foreign minister the former EU justice Commissioner Franco Frattini who was so recently telling us on the European Parliament's civil liberties committee how strongly attached he was to fundamental rights and equality.

The EU is desperately seeking ways to endear itself to its half a billion citizens. One claim put forward by its leaders is that the EU rests on a set of common values, and indeed 3 out of 5 Europeans believe that such values exist.

So why are is the article of the (existing) EU treaty not observed and enforced, that stipulates 'the Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States', with provision for sanctions and suspension of membership rights in case of breach?

Why do the other 26 states not insist that Berlusconi, under pain of sanctions, desist from his grossly discriminatory attacks on EU Romanian citizens and Roma in particular, and from partisan dismantling of the legal system? Why indeed do they not tell Gordon Brown to stop trying to intern suspects for 6 weeks without charge? Why are only would-be or new Member States monitored for observance of the EU's justice and human rights clauses?

As we saw with the well-founded allegations of complicity with extraordinary rendition and torture by around a dozen EU states, there is a failure of accountability because the 27 states prefer to operate on the basis of a club which turns a blind eye to the transgressions of existing members rather than a Union of fundamental rights and the rule of law. They would get respect from their citizens if they demonstrated that the latter really does exist in practice, not just on paper and in high-blown rhetoric.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Ludford MEP