The European Parliament and its International Relations

Stelios Stavridis,Daniela Irrera

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317499633
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Following the Lisbon Treaty, the powers of the European Parliament in external relations have gradually expanded and it is increasingly influencing the foreign policy of the European Union.

This book analyses the role of the European Parliament as an international actor and presents a new debate about its role outside the EU territory. It explores different policy areas including human rights, international aid, trade, crisis management and the environment to provide a systematic analysis of the modern global role of the European Parliament. The book also considers the European Parliament's regional interactions with Africa, Latin America, the United States, Asia and the Middle East. With a common analytical framework and research covering the lifespan of the European Parliament from its first direct elections in 1979 to the present day, this comprehensive volume presents an unparalleled analysis of one of the most important institutions in the European Union.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics and institutions, European policy, government, international relations and European history.

Part I The European Parliament and policy issues

1 The European Union as a ‘normative power’ and the normative voice of the European Parliament

Laura Feliu and Francesc Serra

DOI: 10.4324/9781315713984-1

Introduction

This chapter analyses the European Parliament (EP)’s role in the promotion of human rights in the world, in particular after the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty (LT). For this purpose, the chapter is structured in four sections. The first describes the creation and development of a human rights policy within the European Union (EU) context. The second highlights the issue of the EP acting as a civilian power and its profile in the field of values, which affects human rights policies and their implementation with respect to non-EU countries. We pay special attention to the attitudes of different political groups and sensitivities, as well as the definitions of human rights from the perspective of several European institutions, including those of primary importance to this study. We analyse the instruments created by the EP to promote and uphold such policies. We describe and study the role of the normative, legislative and institutional framework created and used by the EP for that purpose. The third section examines the human rights approaches that the different EP political groups have taken over the years. The fourth section then addresses the question of how useful this institutional framework is for the effective promotion of human rights worldwide. Here we wonder whether the Parliament and other EU institutions have evolved towards a greater interest in those issues alongside the growing importance and power they have gained over the past two decades; and whether the tools they have gained in the different treaties have been useful and sufficient to develop such policies. The concluding section of our study highlights these very issues as we try to find out the real aim of the EU institutions, in particular the Parliament, in upholding a human rights policy, the constraints on this desire inside the Parliament itself and the various trends in these activities in accordance with the different legislation periods and ideological sensitivities within the EP.

The promotion of human rights in Europe and in the world

Although interest in protecting the rights of individuals may be traced to the beginning of whatever we understand by the concept of ‘politics’, human rights as such is a very recent concept. Following discussions promoted by the Roosevelt Presidency during the Second World War (with special involvement and an intellectual initiative from the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt), human rights are defined in the framework of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as one of the main tasks undertaken by this organization since it was set up in 1945. From this point of view, the 1948 Universal Declaration involved the establishment of a common vision of people’s essential rights through a shared and extended view among the various interpretations and cultural and political nuances that exist, universally speaking.

Although its actual regulatory capacity is more debatable, this revolutionary value, precisely because of its global nature and the regulatory desire behind it, has found a special echo in Europe. There are several reasons for this: first, in the mid-twentieth century, European cultural dominance was undisputed and European values were therefore easily exported as universal, since other cultural expressions were much more limited in their influence. Moreover, in 1948 the UNGA consisted of only 58 member states, 42 of which were European, American or ruled by culturally Europeanized political elites. Finally, it is noteworthy that the mainstream humanist trends which at that time were regarded as valid precedents for the development of a universal ethical code, such as Christianity, rationalism, liberalism or socialism, all had strong roots in European culture and had developed in Europe.

Not surprisingly, therefore, in Europe human rights have often been considered as something generated out of its own cultural environment, and even as a European contribution to universal values. At a time when Europe decided to start seriously building its political union, precisely during the post-war reconstruction, the continent sought common positive values which could provide this project with political content, social cohesion and a possible profile. Besides the desire to establish an area of peace and economic growth, these values were unequivocally focused on the protection and development of human rights.

Thomas Carothers (1999) points out the existence in the Western countries of a ‘canonic’ view which counts on a ‘democratic basis’ (elections, national institutions and civil society) and a ‘natural sequence’ of events (pressure on an autocratic regime, impact on its legitimacy, timid openness of the system, plurality of opposition groups, mobilization of media, pressure for the holding of elections, open election of a new government, etc.).

The first process in which human rights and European integration are closely linked is the creation of the Council of Europe (CoE) in 1950. In fact, the specialization of this international organization in human rights is due more to the constraints on it than to its true vocation. Given the refusal of moderate policy makers to claim areas of power for the new organization in economic or security areas, the CoE, the residue of the proposed United States of Europe launched in Zurich by Winston Churchill in 1946, was restricted to purely political issues; and, due to resistance from member states to giving real political power to an organization without much real authority, it changed tack to concentrate on an area of prestige where it had no real powers: human rights.

Furthermore, the strengthening of the European Community since its inception in the 1950s led this project from an initial economic character to the achievement of its own political identity. It therefore sought signs of identity in common values that would allow the new united Europe to distinguish itself from other international agents, in particular from other political powers. Paradoxically, human rights, a concept created to establish universal common values, have been advocated as part of a common European content compared with the ‘rest of the world’, including some countries or regions which seemed, according to this view, not to understand these values sufficiently or not to uphold them as they should. It is as if Europe was endowed with body and substance, clinging to the protection of human rights as something from its own tradition intended to provide the continent with influence and projection throughout the rest of the world.

The development of a regional system of human rights protection operating across Europe after the Second World War may be seen as a direct response to concern over the experience of fascism and the threat of authoritarian trends in communist countries. This partly explains the constant references to values and principles that are ‘necessary in a democratic society’ throughout the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), proposed at the 1949 Hague Congress and endorsed by the CoE’s Committee of Ministers, which convened a group of experts to draft the Convention itself. The Convention was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing ‘effective political democracy’ from the strongest traditions in the United Kingdom, France and other member states of the fledgling CoE. The Convention was overseen and enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and the CoE. Until procedural reforms in the late 1990s, the Convention was also overseen by a European Commission on Human Rights.

The establishment of the European Communities did not automatically lead to a reinforcement of the process of enlarging and fixing the protection of human rights at continental level. Only during the 1970s will we find an initial interest in the protection of people’s rights, and this is due to two main reasons. First, the creation of the European Political Cooperation (EPC) after the 1970 Luxembourg Agreement meant the beginning of a new political concept which went beyond the traditional economic view of the Europe-building process. Thus, a new dynamic was created in which Europe could uphold its supposedly shared values in the international arena and make them its own sign of political identity.

Second, the old Parliamentary Assembly turned into the European Parliament was chosen for the first time in 1979 through direct general elections. This step also involved the creation of an institutional body with direct responsibilities to the general population, which started to work for concerns affecting society, including, increasingly, human rights.

European political integration is a long and hazardous process that involved creating and strengthening common European policies in the 1970s, the Single European Act process in the 1980s, and, finally, the creation of the European Union after the Maastricht Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), immediately following the collapse of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s. During this long process, an enlarged and more coherent Europe sought to project its international influence beyond what its member states could have achieved. From this point of view, the dual role played by human rights in its insertion as a key element of European policy should be highlighted: first, the construction of an essential part of the discourse of Europe as a ‘civilian power’, and second, the strengthening of the role of the Communities’ (and later, Union’s) own bodies in upholding the individual and collective rights of European citizens, in which we must particularly stress the EP role. As Yves Mény states (2009, p. 21):

[a] symbol of democracy in Europe, the European Parliament has, since the birth of the Community, presented itself as an undisputed forum for the advocacy and protection of human rights, reflecting public opinion and acting as a sounding box for the human rights movement.

First, the concept of civilian power is often applied to Europe as something in contrast to the kind of aggression and imposition of leadership that can be exercised by other powers (including, often, some EU member states). This peaceful influence on other parts of the planet comes through the adoption of a non-aggressive and attractive discourse acceptable both to the societies of the countries with which Europe is related and the political classes in these countries. Human rights, considered as an acquis originating from, or at least particularly protected by, Europe, has become a message with highly popular and progressive content which is neither aggressive nor demanding. This allows Europe, as a power, to compete with other clearly ‘tougher’ forms of influence but which are less defensible in public scenarios. Of course, this entails the risk that the ‘civil’ message, clearly concealing political and economic interests, could end up damaging the discourse and even the image of the political power using it if it cannot, in the long run, uphold this content or make it compatible with the real interests of its policy.

Second, the institutional bodies of the European Communities and the EU have created mechanisms for protecting human rights as well as a number of commitments in this regard. Among these bodies, the role of the EP, elected in direct representation of citizens and, therefore, in a leading position to protect their interests, should be emphasized. Thus, the Parliament has legislated not only to promote the protection of human rights in the context of a united Europe, but has used its pressure on other EU institutions, particularly the European Council and the Commission, to achieve greater consistency in the defence of universal human rights. The EP has always shown greater concern for the promotion and monitoring of human rights policies than other European bodies, in particular the European Council.

In 1975, in its resolution on European Union (Tindemans Report), the EP voiced the need to give the future Union a Charter of Fundamental Rights. In 1984, t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Frontmatter Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: the European Parliament as an international actor—DANIELA IRRERA
• PART I The European Parliament and policy issues
• PART II The European Parliament and geographical areas
• PART III The European Parliament and international conflicts
• Conclusions: international role and impact of the European Parliament—STELIOS STAVRIDIS
• Index