Human rights is a key issue for the European Parliament and MEPs Monday took a first look at what the European Union did last year, when they discussed the EU annual report on human rights in the world.
Human rights is a key issue for the European Parliament and MEPs Monday took a first look at what the European Union did last year, when they discussed the EU annual report on human rights in the world. MEPs remain concerned about the consistency and coherence of EU action.
Representatives from the Council, which published the report for the 18 months to December 2009 on 10 May, were in the EP's Human Rights Sub-Committee to outline the main themes of the 11th European Union report. The EU provided €238 million in funding for 900 NGO projects in around a 100 countries.
Committee Chair and Finnish Green MEP Heidi Hautala said despite requests from the EP to “develop specific quantifiable indicators to measure the effectiveness of those policies...we have been frustrated to see the results remain vague. There is not much of a report on progress in country situations compared to previous years”.
Vice-Chair Laima Liucija Andrikienė (a Lithuanian MEP in the centre right EPP) said, “we look at whether human rights situations have improved, whether the EU has spent tax payers' money efficiently...these evaluation aspects are missing.”
A Council representative said while the report aims to show what actual difference EU action in fields from development cooperation to security operations make on the ground, “not everything is quantifiable and Union actions don't always lead to a change on the ground - and not all changes on the ground can be attributed to EU action.”
The EU's High Representative Catherine Ashton will present the report to plenary in June.
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