Update on Chairpersons Meeting on Fundamental Rights

• Conference: Documents, videos and photos on the website of the Italian Presidency
• Report: EU Data Protection law: A 'right to be forgotten'? (PDF)
• EU Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection Sub-Committee

Topics

The conference focused on four topics:

• Enforcing fundamental rights to combat exclusion
• Data protection and new rights in the digital era
• Steps towards a true European common migration and asylum policy
• New tools to combat discrimination.

The conference was hosted under the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU, which rotates to a different Member State every six months. It brought together parliamentarians from 24 national parliaments of Member States and candidate Member States of the EU, and a wide array of keynote speakers, including:

• Judith Sutherland, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch;
• Morten Kjaerum, Director, Fundamental Rights Agency;
• Judge Marko Ilešič, Court of Justice of the EU, reporting Judge in the case of Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González
• Elizabeth Collett, Director, Migration Policy Institute, Europe.

Debates

Baroness Quin spoke in the plenary debate on enforcing fundamental rights to combat exclusion in order to highlight the importance of enforcing high standards in the area not only because it was inherently important, but also because it set an example to applicant countries seeking to join the EU. Judith Sutherland, Human Rights Watch, agreed that the EU had to uphold human rights principles at home in order to have credibility abroad.

Baroness Quin also referred to the Justice and Institutions Sub-Committee’s recent scrutiny of the proposal for a new legal framework to provide an early warning tool for systematic violations of human rights. The Sub-Committee welcomed the proposal, but there was a gap between the use of 'soft power' and the 'nuclear option' of invoking Article 7. The Sub-Committee’s conclusion was that a good flow of information between EU and national authorities, and a thorough consultation exercise including national parliaments, would both be necessary in order to ensure that an effective process was agreed and implemented to bridge this gap. In addition, Commissioner Reicherts warned of the best becoming the enemy of the good in this area.

Baroness Quin also spoke in the debate on data protection and new rights, regarding the 'Right to be Forgotten', which was the subject of a recent report by the EU Committee. She noted the challenges that were faced when trying to implement the 1995 Directive, which had been overtaken by the changes in technology, but which still enshrined the important principle of allowing citizens redress, especially when information published about them was inaccurate, false or defamatory.

She emphasised the EU Committee's conclusion that the 'Right to be Forgotten' was difficult to enforce and, in practice, unworkable. Once information had been published online, it was virtually impossible for it to be erased completely. Instead, she suggested that the EU's focus should be on ensuring that the final form of the new data protection package reflected the new technological situation.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select Committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch Committees