Juridisch geschil zou het EU-agentschap voor fundamentele rechten kunnen vertragen (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs are poised to support the EU fundamental rights agency - to be set up next January - but insist the new body should also tackle justice and police-related issues, which some governments are opposing.

The agency is supposed to replace the existing European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in Vienna at the beginning of 2007, but some insiders suggest this plan could be delayed due to remaining divisions among national capitals.

Under the compromise deal between the parliament and the council - representing the member states - the new body will make recommendations on the human rights records in EU member and accession countries on the basis of its own research.

However, it remains unclear whether these should cover issues involving legal and police co-operation which are governed exclusively by member states and not by EU community laws.

Kinga Gal, a Hungarian centre-right deputy and author of the report on the subject to be voted on Wednesday (13 September) argues "It would be ridiculous to have an agency which would ignore cases such as trafficking of women and children."

Her view is shared by various human rights activists.

Dick Oosting from Amnesty International told EUobserver, "the EU is risking a credibility problem as you cannot just close your eyes to such fundamental issues as police abuse, racism, torture or treatment of prisoners."

But while MEPs are expected to support this view and several member states also believe the agency should have greater powers, Germany, the UK, Slovakia and Malta maintain that there's no legal basis for granting this power to the new body.

"The council's legal experts admitted that there is no such legal basis so don't expect the opponents' views to be changed overnight - although there are different legal interpretations naturally," one EU diplomat commented.

Despite the divisions, the Finnish presidency is still hoping to achieve a deal on the agency's rules next month, with the issue possibly coming up - "at least in the corridors" - at the forthcoming informal meeting of EU justice ministers in Finland next week.

"At the moment, we know there have been some bilateral meetings on the subject between some countries and we expect to officially discuss this at the October council," a Finnish presidency contact told EUobserver.

Needless and expensive?

While EU leaders have already agreed to the creation of the agency, if not how it should function, some MEPs remain strongly against the body arguing it will duplicate the activities of the Council of Europe.

The 46-member strong council believes it holds the primary role in the protection and promotion of human rights in Europe, with some of its officials expressing concern earlier this year about a possible overlap in agendas.

Responding to this criticism, the parliament and member states have agreed that the agency should strike some kind of "memorandum of understanding" with the Council of Europe.

UK conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope says he will still vote against the agency however, as he says it is "needless, expensive and unhelpful" - following the rejection of the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands last year.

"With the proposed European constitution dead, this proposal is an example of the constitution being imposed by stealth," he argues, given that the agency was originally proposed in line with the Charter on Fundamental Rights included in the constitution.